The cost of delaying rewarding brain stimulation.
Six rats trained to press a lever to obtain rewarding electrical stimulation of the brain through chronically implanted, lateral hypothalamic electrodes were used to estimate the rate at which short delays between the response and the reward degraded the rewarding effect of the stimulation. Frequency thresholds rose steadily with delays through to 2.2 s at a rate of 10% per second.
Fouriezos
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School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. georgef@uottawa.ca
Randall
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D
D000818:Animals; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000187:drug effects*; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D007031:Hypothalamus / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D012055:Reinforcement Schedule; D012201:Reward