The effects of lithium chloride on response to salient and nonsalient stimuli in Carassius auratus.

The exploratory behaviour of 20 goldfish was investigated to see whether it was affected by treatment with lithium chloride. When familiar and novel stimuli were readily discriminable, lithium treatment had no effect on exploration. In a second study, using 20 fish, it was shown that when novel and familiar stimuli were less markedly different from each other, exploratory responses to the novel stimulus were reduced by lithium. The findings may be related to a general suppressant action of lithium on the extent of stimulus generalisation, or to a reduction by lithium of the animals' responsiveness to near-threshold levels of stimulation.