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COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTS OF NICOTINE AND NON-PHARMACOLOGICAL MANIPULATIONS ON REPEATED ACQUISITION IN RATS.
Citation:
Jarema, K A. AND R C. MacPhail. COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTS OF NICOTINE AND NON-PHARMACOLOGICAL MANIPULATIONS ON REPEATED ACQUISITION IN RATS. Presented at International Association for Behavior Analysis, Chicago, IL, May 27 - 31, 2005.
Description:
Non-pharmacological manipulations may be useful in identifying the behavioral mechanisms of drug action. We therefore compared the effect of nicotine with several manipulations of reinforcer efficacy on the repeated acquisition of response sequences in rats. Adult male Long-Evans rats (N=18) were trained to emit three-response sequences using food reinforcement. Each daily session consisted of a two-component multiple schedule with a new sequence to be learned (i.e., repeated acquisition) and a fixed sequence that remained invariant (i.e., a performance control). Following extended training, all rats received a single injection of 0.6 mg/kg nicotine, s.c., 5-min prior to testing. Nicotine administration was preceded by manipulations of reinforcer efficacy that included pre-feeding, extinction and delayed reinforcement. Nicotine decreased response rates and accuracy in both the repeated-acquisition and performance components. Pre-feeding slightly decreased response rates but had no effect on accuracy in either schedule component. Extinction and delayed reinforcement decreased response accuracy in both schedule components in a manner similar to that produced by nicotine. In contrast to nicotine, however, extinction and delayed reinforcement increased rates of responding in both schedule components, with greater increases in the performance component. Thus, the effect of nicotine on repeated acquisition could not be mimicked by pre-feeding, extinction or delayed reinforcement.
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