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Animal Models of Psychiatric Disorders: Behaviour Analysis Perspectives

The use of animal models of human psychiatric disorders can be justified in terms of the evolutionary history of species, and such models are extensively employed in research for a variety of ethical and scientific reasons. They should have: face validity, in that the animal behaviour studied resembles the human behaviour in question; construct validity, meaning that similar biological mechanisms are involved as in the human disorder; and predictive validity in that treatments that are effective in the human disorder also affect the animal model. Two models involving operant conditioning are reviewed: conditioned suppression, which is well established as a model for clinical anxiety, and operant extinction which is being developed as a model of aspects of Alzheimer’s disease. The validity of these models is assessed, and their core features related to key concepts in behaviour analysis. It is concluded that behaviour analysis has much to offer in this field: as well as providing robust behavioural phenomena against which biological variables can be assessed, the use of operant-conditioning based animal models of psychiatric disorders can inform our account of the disorder and allow us to evaluate behaviour analysis concepts.