Abstract
Conditioned suppression of ongoing behavior in response to a stimulus paired with barbiturate treatment was investigated in rats leverpressing for food pellets by presenting an audiovisual stimulus (conditioned stimulus [CS]) 3 min before injection of 15 mg/kg sodium pentobarbital (experimental group, n = 9) or water (control group, n = 8). The experimental rats completely stopped responding during the 20-min postinjection period. During 12 conditioning days, the experimental group developed conditioned suppression to the preinjection CS as indicated by decreases in response rate to 35% of baseline, significantly different from the 70% control group mean. The preinjection conditioned response lowered response rate, as did the actual drug treatment. Visual observation revealed that the CS elicited locomotor activity that interfered with leverpressing, indicating that although the conditioned response rate change was “isodirectional” to the drug effect (unconditioned response), an opposite-direction conditioned locomotor conditioned response was elicited by preinjection stimuli. The ability of the injection procedure to elicit conditioned responses was determined after 12 conditioning days in an extinction-test session in which water only was injected in both groups. Neither significant conditioned suppression nor conditioned motor activity was elicited by the injection procedure.
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Duncan, P.M. Conditioned suppression of operant responding in response to a stimulus paired with pentobarbital injections. Psychobiology 25, 146–151 (1997). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03331920
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03331920