Am J Psychiatry 1979; 136:1168-1172
Copyright © 1979 by American Psychiatric Association
A dog model for human psychopathology
WG Reese
The author reviews studies of the development and scientific exploitation
of two true-breeding strains of pointer dogs, one of which is basically
normal and one of which is nervous, particularly around people. Basic
studies, which generally contrast the nervous dogs with the normal dogs,
include studies of inheritance, early experience, conditioning,
psychophysiology, neuropharmacology, and neurochemistry. The author
suggests that the nervous line is an animal model of human psychopathology
and probably of cardiac pathology.
