Effects of chlordiazepoxide on drinking compared in rats challenged with hypertonic saline, isoproterenol or polyethylene glycol.

Several investigators have shown that anxiolytic benzodiazepines stimulate additional water consumption in rats made thirsty by water deprivation. The present report extends this work by showing that chlordiazepoxide (CDP) enhanced drinking in rats challenged with either cellular or extracellular dehydration, following hypertonic saline or polyethylene glycol injection respectively. Since CDP also increased drinking in control animals, it may have produced a direct dipsogenic effect which acted additively with respect to the physiological thirst challenges. In contrast, CDP did not enhance water intake during the dipsogenic action of the beta-adrenergic agonist, isoproterenol. The data provide new evidence that benzodiazepine mechanisms may be involved in thirst and the controls of drinking.