Endocrine changes due to auditory stress.

Abstract

For more than thirty years investigators in both animal behaviour and experimental psychiatry have sought to develop experimental model situations in which to produce abnormal behaviour in animals. These investigations have in large part been concerned with the design of specific circumstances which could reliably produce standard patterns of abnormal behaviour. Despite the expansiveness of the behavioural findings and the excellence of these investigations as situational explorations into the development of abnormal behaviour, there has been a great lag in the study of the physiologic changes which accompany the disturbed behaviour state. The present investigation is an attempt to repair this investigatory gap and to study the alterations in endocrinologic functions which accompany the subjection of laboratory animals to a standard type situation in which abnormal behaviour has been studied. It is hoped that this will make it possible to better understand some of the physiologic mechanisms which may underlie the disturbed behavioural state. The specific situation selected for study is the auditory stress design that has been utilized by Morgan & Morgan (1939), Finger (1942) and others for the production of seizure patterns in rats. This procedure has been selected from among numerous alternative methods that have been utilized in the production of abnormal behaviour because of its relative simplicity of application and the high level of reliability of its effect. We recognize that there is considerable debate as to whether it is the auditory stimulus itself that is producing the abnormal behaviour or whether as Maier (1939) has maintained, the auditory stimulus represents but one part of a conflict situation that is in its totality the basis for the development of the abnormal behaviour pattern. The conflict hypothesis is an attractive one and since Pavlov (1927), it has been the dominant paradigm that has been utilized in the explanation of the development of abnormal behaviour patterns. The present level of evidence is as yet insufficient to determine whether the auditory stimulation in and of itself is the effective agent in the production of the abnormal behaviour or whether it is only one important portion of a conflict complex. However, the present study does not depend for its validity upon either of these interpretations as to the production of the abnormal effect. Rather, it views the auditory stimulus as a generalized stress imposed upon the experimental animal, which has as one of its consequences under given conditions the production of a standardized pattern of abnormal response. The prime concern of the present investigation is with the production or rather with the application of a standardized stimulus situation that is a reliable producer of disturbed behaviour. The auditory stimulus is such a situation and can therefore be utilized as a standard stress.