Strain Differences I: Amphetamine and Other Stimulants

Abstract

The study of strain differences in the drug responses of nonselected subjects had included other species of laboratory animals than the widely used rat, the range now being extended to, especially, the mouse. This species has long been available in inbred strains in a profusion not evident for the rat, the laboratory animal most favored by psychologists. The reason is that the mouse has been used by workers in the field of cancer research and inbred strains of mice were developed in the interests of uniformity of response to drug and other treatments, including susceptibility to spontaneous carcinomas and response to carcinogens, in a way that was not paralleled for the rat.