title: Task difficulty increases thresholds of rewarding brain stimulation.
abstract: The effect of increasing task difficulty on the threshold of rewarding, electrical brain stimulation was evaluated. Rats were trained to press a lever to obtain a brief burst of pulses to the lateral hypothalamus. The threshold was psychophysically scaled using a descending method of limits in which the pulse frequency was varied to yield a maximum to minimum range of self-stimulation rates. As expected, weighting the lever with 0, 15, 30, or 45 g produced progressive decreases in maximal rates, but it also caused a weight-related shift to the right of the rate-frequency ogives in each of the 7 rats. Although the degree of shift varied from rat to rat, it did not matter whether criterion performance was defined as half-maximum rate or as a constant rate of 5 responses. These results suggest that the effort required to make the operant response contributes to the position of rate-frequency curves and, further, that shifts in rate-frequency functions must be interpreted with caution when such shifts are obtained by CNS lesions or drug injections.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ont., Canada.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fouriezos
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bielajew
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Pagotto
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D007026:Hypothalamic Area, Lateral / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D005082:Physical Exertion / Q000502:physiology*; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012653:Self Stimulation / Q000502:physiology*; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology