COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF AGGRESSIVE-BEHAVIOR AFTER INJECTION OF CHOLINOMIMETICS, ANTICHOLINESTERASES, NICOTINIC, AND MUSCARINIC GANGLIONIC STIMULANTS INTO THE CEREBRAL-VENTRICLES OF CONSCIOUS CATS - FAILURE OF NICOTINIC DRUGS TO EVOKE AGGRESSION

Emotional behaviour, especially aggression, evoked by cholinomimetics, anticholinesterases, nicotinic, and muscarinic ganglionic stimulants injected into the cerebral ventricles of unanesthetized cats was studied and compared. Aggressive behaviour was obtained after intraventricular carbachol, muscarine, arecoline, eserine, neostigmine, and 4-m-chlorophenylcarbamoyloxy-2-butynyl-trimethylammonium chloride (McN-A-343). The aggressive behaviour and the autonomic and motor phenomena of various single doses of cholinomimetics and anticholinesterases were dose-dependent and long-lasting. Neostigmine produced aggressive behaviour only in about one-fourth of the experiments, while arecoline and McN-A-343 induced aggression of slightest intensity. The type of aggressive behaviour caused by carbachol, arecoline, eserine, neostigmine, and McN-A-343 was classified as irritable-type aggressive behaviour, while muscarine induced fear-type aggressive behaviour. Intraventricular administration of nicotine, dimethylphenylpiperazinium, tetramethylammonium, and N-benzyl-3-pyrrolidyl acetate methobromide (AHR-602) did not evoke aggressive behaviour, but they induced fleeting autonomic and motor phenomena. The ability of single intraventricular injections of cholinomimetics and anticholinesterases to trigger and to maintain long-lasting aggressive behavioural phenomena cannot be ascribed to a rapid 'detonator' transmission, but rather to an action that differs from the conventional transmitter function. In addition, we advance a hypothesis that the cholinoceptive neurons sensitive to cholinomimetics and anticholinesterases behave as a biologic generator that when activated produces long-lasting aggression with autonomic and motor phenomena. © 1979 Springer-Verlag.