Abstract
Wall climbing is an age-specific behavior that is robustly elicited in rat pups during the 2nd postnatal week, but not thereafter, by a variety of stimuli including footshock and treatment with catecholamine agonists such as clonidine. This series of experiments examined the influence of the cholinergic antagonist scopolamine on footshock-and clonidine-induced wall climbing and its ontogenetic decline in infant to adult Sprague-Dawley rats. Scopolamine was observed to partially reinstate clonidine- and footshock-precipitated wall climbing following the ontogenetic decline in this behavior pattern after the 2nd postnatal week, effects that did not appear to be related to drug-induced alterations in general activity levels or to alterations in body temperature. In contrast, wall climbing induced by both stimuli during the 2nd postnatal week was conversely reduced by scopolamine, data consistent with a number of previous reports that anticholinergic agents may produce “paradoxical” responses early in development opposite to those observed later in ontogeny. These results provide evidence that the dramatic ontogenetic decline in wall climbing may be related in part to the maturation of cholinergic subsystems with an inhibitory influence on this behavior pattern. However, the only partial reinstatement of wall climbing by cholinergic blockade suggests that the ontogenetic decline of this behavior pattern may also be related to the development of other inhibitory systems or to the emergence of competing responses elicited by formerly effective wall climbing stimuli as the organism matures.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barrett BA, Caza P, Spear NE, Spear LP (1982) Wall climbing, odors from the home nest and catecholaminergic activity in rat pups. Physiol Behav 29:501–507
Blozovski D, Blozovski M (1973) Effects de l'atropine sur l'exploration, l'apprentissage et l'activite electrocorticale chex le rat au cours du development. Psychopharmacologia 33:39–52
Campbell BA, Lytle LD, Fibiger HC (1969) Ontogeny of adrenergic arousal and cholinergic inhibitory mechanisms in the rat. Science 166:635–636
Emerich DF, Scalzo FM, Enters EK, Spear NE, Spear LP (1985) Effects of 6-hydroxydopamine-induced catecholamine depletion on shock-precipitated wall climbing of infant rat pups. Dev Psychobiol 18:215–227
Evans WO (1961) A new technique for the investigation of some analgesia drugs on a reflexive behavior in the rat. Psychopharmacologia 2:318–325
Fibiger HC, Lytle LD, Campbell BA (1970) Cholinergic modulation of adrenergic arousal in the developing rat. J Comp Physiol Psychol 82:384–389
Games PA (1978) A four-factor structure for parametric tests on independent groups. Psychol Bull 85:661–672
Isaacson RL, Yongue B, Carrera R (1978) Clonidine-induced body temperature changes with anterior or posterior cortical damage. Physiol Psychol 6:236–240
Johanson IB, Hall WG (1980) The ontogeny of feeding in rats: III. Thermal determinants of early ingestive responding. J Comp Physiol Psychol 94:977–992
Keppel G (1982) Design and analysis: A researcher's handbook. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Leifer MW, Bridger WH (1976) Effects of mescaline on flinch and movement shock thresholds in rats. Biol Psychiatry 11:457–461
Linville DG, Emerich DF, Spear LP (1984) Cholinergic inhibition of clonidine-induced wall climbing in infant and preweanling rat pups. Int Soc Dev Psychobiol (Abstr) Baltimore
Murphy JM, Nagy ZM (1976) Development of cholinergic inhibitory capacities in the hyperthyroid mouse. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 5:449–456
Nomura Y, Oki K, Segawa T (1980) Pharmacological characterization of central alpha-adrenoceptors which mediate clonidine-induced locomotor hypoactivity in the developing rat. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol 311:41–44
Reinstein DK, Isaacson RL (1977) Clonidine sensitivity in the developing rat. Brain Res 135:378–382
Reinstein DK, Isaacson RL (1981) Behavioral and temperature changes induced by clonidine in the developing rat. Neurosci Lett 26:251–257
Shalaby IA, Spear LP (1980) Psychopharmacological effects of low and high doses of apomorphine during ontogeny. Eur J Pharmacol 67:451–459
Smith GJ (1981) Age-specific defense behaviors: Constraints on ontogeny of learning and memory. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton
Smith GJ, Spear LP, Spear NE (1979) Ontogeny of cholinergic mediation of behaviors in the rat. J Comp Physiol Psychol 93:636–647
Smith GJ, Spear LP, Spear NE (1982) Detection of cholinergic mediation of behavior in 7-, 9-, and 12-day old rat pups. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 16:805–809
Spear LP, Brick J (1979) Cocaine induced behavior in the developing rat. Behav Neural Biol 26:401–415
Stehouwer DJ, Campbell BA (1980) Ontogeny of passive avoidance: Role of task demands and development of species typical behaviors. Dev Psychobiol 13:385–398
Tsoucaris-Kupfer D, Schmitt H (1972) Hypothermic effect of α-sympathomimetic agents and their antagonism by adrenergic and cholinergic blocking drugs. Neuropharmacology 11:625–635
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Linville, D.G., Spear, L.P. Cholinergic influences on wall climbing and its ontogenetic decline. Psychopharmacology 95, 200–207 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00174510
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00174510