Research Project
3209932
This project will provide an exhaustive bibliographic list and a comprehensive index of all published works n which drugs function as discriminative stimuli (cues). These techniques constitute one of the most widely used behavioral approaches in psychopharmacology. The work adds to knowledge of the effects, modes of action and abuse liability of psychoactive drugs, and it is a vital standard method in efforts to develop new agents for use in psychiatry. The current database will be transferred to a new information retrieval system that will facilitate its efficient and economic maintenance in the future. New data for the bibliography will be drawn from published literature and they will be indexed with a system of coded keywords. Original research articles, review papers, book chapters and abstracts (when published in archival form) will be included. The database will be continuously updated and it will be rapidly and easily available to all research workers and to other suitable persons or organizations. In addition, recently entered data will be published from time to time in a scientific journal. The database will be a continuation of an existing project and it will utilize tried and tested methods. There will be no other way to gain access to the drug discrimination literature that will be as comprehensive or that will allow an equal degree of precision for selective searching. For example, it will be possible to distinguish between different uses of drugs in experiments, and key methodological variables. The present database (1951-1988) contains about 1200 citations and it is estimated that this will be increased to about 1600 in the next three years.
