Anxiolytic effects of drugs: approaches, methods and problems

The paper reviews in the first part some of the most important contributions to pharmacological anxiety research of related scientific disciplines, namely human pharmacopsychology, animal behavioral pharmacology, neuropharmacology and pharmacopsychiatry. In the second part the main methodological problems encountered in research on psychopharmacology of anxiety are treated. The problems discussed refer to the assessment of anxiety, to the definition of the anxiety state and to the problem of unspecific drug actions and of response variability to drugs.