Antagonism of picrotoxin against the taming effect of carbamazepine on footshock induced fighting behavior in mice.

Carbamazepine (10 and 20 mg/kg, i.p., P less than 0.01; 40 mg/kg p.o., P less than 0.01), Li2CO3 (200 mg/kg, i.p., P less than 0.01; 200 mg/kg, p.o., P less than 0.05), diazepam (0.5 mg/kg, i.p., P less than 0.01) and haloperidol (0.5 mg/kg, i.p., P less than 0.01) significantly decreased the number of fighting episodes induced by footshock in mice. Picrotoxin (0.3 mg/kg, s.c.) and bicuculline (0.5 mg/kg, s.c.) antagonized the effect of carbamazepine or diazepam completely. Our present results suggest that the taming property of carbamazepine in the footshock model have some relation with the GABAergic mechanism.