Potentiating hippocampal stimulation facilitates acquisition of lever-pressing for stimulation but not food.
The effect of a prior program of daily hippocampal stimulation on acquisition of lever-pressing for food, and subsequently for stimulation, was studied in 3 groups of rats--stimulated over 30 days with a single daily train (60 Hz) of potentiating stimulation (kindling), stimulated with an equal number of pulses at a non-potentiating frequency (1 Hz), and unstimulated controls. Rate of acquisition of lever-pressing for food pellets was unaffected by either stimulation pretreatment. When reinforcement was switched to hippocampal stimulation, acquisition was very slow for animals which had received no previous potentiating stimulation (1 Hz and unstimulated groups), but significantly faster for the 60 Hz animals. The results suggest that the faster acquisition of lever-pressing in kindled animals is specific to hippocampal reinforcement and that the effect is dependent on the potentiating consequences of the stimulation pretreatment.
D000818:Animals; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D012640:Seizures / Q000503:physiopathology; D012653:Self Stimulation / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors