1. Effect of chlorpromazine (CPZ) and imipramine (IMP) on the overt behavior was studied in fish, frogs, pigeons, mice, rats, and rabbits and also on the EEG and conditioned reflex activity in pigeons and rabbits.
2. In general, it can be said that IMP acts more strongly upon the nonneocorticate animals in their behavioral changes than the neocorticate ones, while for CPZ the reverse manner is true.
3. In pigeons the administration of CPZ alters, to some degree, the EEG pattern of slow, high-voltage wave, while that of IMP provokes EEG-desynchronization. In rabbits the administration of CPZ as well as IMP modifies the EEG pattern into slow, high-voltage wave. Observations on the duration of the effect on EEG changes show that CPZ is much stronger than IMP in mammals.
4. In pigeons the administration of CPZ does not disturb simple defensive conditioned reflex, but food motor conditioned reflex is impaired. Administration of IMP impairs more profoundly simple defensive conditioned reflex and food motor conditioned reflex than that of CPZ in pigeons. In rabbits food motor conditioned reflex is very slightly disturbed by low doses of IMP, only being disappeared by high doses of the drug, while low doses of CPZ are enough to cause the disappearance of food motor conditioned reflex.
5. Discussion is made by comparing the action of both drugs, from the point of view of phylogeny on the central nervous system, and suggests that although the action of IMP is complex, it acts primarily upon the function of correlation between the somatic and visceral components in the brain stem reticular formations and then the diffuse activating system; the effect of CPZ, on the other hand, is primarily on the activating system, the descending i nhibitory function and the neocortex, while affecting the function of correla-tion between the somatic and visceral components of the reticular formations.
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