The neurobehavioral effects of flumazenil in chicks

Abstract

Flumazenil is choosy and competitive GABA receptor blocker that serves as an antidote to benzodiazepines overdose. Its administration in humans and some animal’s model is connected with nervousness, anxiety responses, or seizures attacks. The objective of this study was to scrutinize the neurobehavioral reaction as well as sedative and anxiolytic actions of flumazenil in chick’s model. The Median effective dose of flumazenil injected chicks was 0.114 mg/kg i.p. Flumazenil at 0.04 and 0.08 mg/kg diminished the locomotors activity, prolonged the period of tonic immobility and have anxiolytic action in chicks. Flumazenil at 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 mg/kg cause mild sedation in chicks. Flumazenil at 0.1 and 0.2 mg/kg have antagonistic effects in chicks sedated with diazepam at 10mg/kg. Flumazenil demonstrated fairly unexpectedly a depressant effect in the open field test and sedative and anxiolytic bias attention test in the chick’s model. These findings indicate that the impact of flumazenil is indicative of the characteristics of partial agonists when given on its own and antagonist when given after diazepam according to the neurobehavioral tests.

Keywords

• flumazenil
• diazepam
• attention bias test
• open field test
• chicks