Behavioral effects of benzodiazepines: A review

The effects of benzodiazepines on conditioned and unconditioned behavior are reviewed. These compounds appear to decrease the suppressive effects of aversive stimuli such as electric shock or nonreward on behavior, a result usually related to their anxiolytic activity in human medicine. However they do not attenuate but rather increase the facilitatory effects of aversive stimuli on behavior. This last result points out the role played by changes at the response level and it is suggested, from the available evidence, that benzodiazepines induce response perseveration by preferentially interfering with the response-produced feedbacks. This effect is further complicated by the role of drug factors and the possibility of the drug treatment to combine to environmental cues and induce state-dependency. Further work is needed to examine the interference of benzodiazepines treatment with the facilitatory effects of aversive stimuli on behavior on one hand, and to determine the respective role of exteroceptive cues and response-produced feedbacks on the other hand.