Conventional clinical trials using parallel groups are relatively
insensitive to the effects of psychotropic drugs, especially antianxiety
agents. Experimental paradigms based on the single organism research
strategy offer an alternative. A free operant avoidance procedure clearly
distinguished representative psychotropic compounds, including diazepam and
pentobarbital, in normal subjects, and a multiple crossover procedure
clearly detected antianxiety effects of diazepam in 11 psychoneurotic
patients and antipsychotic effects of chlordiazepoxide in individual
schizophrenic patients. Such procedures may serve to evaluate the
effectiveness of therapeutic interventions in clinical practice as well as
in research.
Abstract Teaser