Abstract
Rats were trained to bar press for a sucrose solution reward in the presence of either a light or a tone. After a criterion had been reached, the relevance of the cues was reversed. Testing continued over eight reversals. Prior to the start of Reversal 2, subjects received a single i.p. injection of saline, 0.5 mg/kg or 2.0 mg/kg methamphetamine. Compared with the saline controls, both drug groups demonstrated a considerable reduction in the number of trials to criterion by reducing the number of nonrewarded (S−) responses on all successive reversals. Except for a reduction of rewarded (S+) responses by the highest dose group on Reversal 2, the percentage of S+ responses was approximately the same in all treatment groups. As the superior performance in terms of all measures persisted over the remaining experimental periods after the drug treatment was discontinued, the drug effect was not easily attributable to a transient enhancement of performance.
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These results represent part of the doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
This research was supported in part by NIMH grant 18535-01 to the second author.
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Kulig, B.M., Calhoun, W.H. Enhancement of successive discrimination reversal learning by methamphetamine. Psychopharmacologia 27, 233–240 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00422803
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00422803