Phencyclidine‐ type catalepsy in the pigeon: An update on chen's work

Abstract Chen [1965] described a specific form of catalepsy produced by phencyclidine and related arylcyclohexylamine analogues in pigeons. The present study expanded those observations to a variety of compounds identified as having phencyclidine‐like subjective effects in man or in drug discrimination experiments in laboratory animals. Besides phencyclidine and ketamine, etoxacrol, dexoxadrol, dextrorphan, cyclazocine, and a series of benz(f)isoquinolines produced phencyclidine‐like catalepsy, thus correlating with drug discrimination data from pigeons using phencyclidine‐like drugs. A variety of opioid agonists and mixed agonists/antagonists, along with nefopam, amantadine, baclofen, and THIP, did not produce phencyclidine‐like catalepsy. Opioid antagonists, haloperidol, and α‐methylparatyrosine did not antagonize the phencyclidine‐like catalepsy. These results emphasize the specificity of phencyclidine‐like catalepsy as a test for determining the presence or absence of phencyclidine‐like activity in compounds during drug development.