The Effects of Nerve Agents on Behavioral Performance and Their Modification with Antidotes and Antidote Combinations

摘要

The results of this study confirm that sublethal doses of the nerve agent soman disrupt performance of a well learned shuttle avoidance task by rats. Performance decrements were significant at a dose that was lethal to only 9% (1 subject) of the animals tested. Four subjects in this group showed no toxic signs yet displayed performance decrements. The decrement in avoidance performance showed a positive relationship to the dose of soman administered, with progressiely greater decrements becoming apparent as the challenge dose was raised. The reduction in avoidance performance in the 30 and 40 micro g/kg soman groups was accompanied by a corresponding increase in escape responding along with a modest, but statisically insignificant increase in failures to escape. These data, and casual observation of the animals, leads to the conclusion that while many may have been exhibiting moderate toxic symptoms they were physically capable of performing a shuttle response and the shock still retained aversive properties to motivate such a response. The changes in avoidance performance at these doses is attributed to a pharmacologically induced disruption of the neural processes which mediate this behavior.