Rats can discriminate illuminance, but not magnetic fields, as a stimulus for learning a two-choice discrimination.
In each of the two experiments, nine rats were trained for 64 trials (eight trials per day) to determine if they could acquire a two-choice discrimination based on a specified discriminative stimulus (S(D)). In one experiment, the S(D) was a change in ambient illumination, while in the second experiment the S(D) was a change in the combination of sinusoidal 60 Hz and static magnetic field (MF) and any cues attendant to energizing the coils that produced the MF exposure. The rats that had a change in illuminance as the S(D) learned the two-choice task easily, P <.001, whereas the rats having a change in MFs as the S(D) did not.
Creim
J A
JA
Bioelectromagnetics Group, Molecular Biosciences Department, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, PO Box 999, Richland, WA 99352, USA.
Lovely
R H
RH
Miller
D L
DL
Anderson
L E
LE
D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D004594:Electrophysiology; D008027:Light; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects*