Abstract
Adult cats acquire complex heart rate response patterns to a CS paired with footshock US. The direction of the heart rate change in the last third of the CS-US interval is acceleratory when the subject performs a unilateral leg flexion, but a deceleration occurs when the motor response is a bilateral leg flexion (crouching) or immobility. In contrast, 4-week-old kittens show a uniform heart rate pattern that retains the same form whether the stimulus is novel, paired with the US, or unpaired. The amplitude of this infantile heart rate pattern undergoes habituation with unpaired presentations of the CS and US, but it is protected from habituation by the procedure of conditioning.
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This research was supported by HD 05958. The third author was Public Health Service International Research Fellow F05 TW 2478-02, and the fourth author was a postdoctoral trainee supported under HD 07032.
The authors are grateful to LeNae Boddie for her help in preparing this manuscript
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Soltysik, S.S., Wolfe, G., Garcia-Sanchez, J. et al. Infantile and adult heart rate patterns in cats during aversive conditioning. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 19, 51–54 (1982). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330037
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330037