DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF A FOOD-BASED CONDITIONED INHIBITOR ON FOOD- OR COCAINE-SEEKING BEHAVIOR.
The present experiment compared the effects of a food-based conditioned inhibitor on food seeking vs. cocaine seeking behavior. In two groups of rats, the A+/AB- Pavlovian conditioned inhibition procedure was used to create a conditioned inhibitor for food. Then, for one group of rats (Food-Food Group), a click stimulus was established as an operant discriminative stimulus (S(D)) for food-reinforced lever pressing. In the other group (Food-Cocaine Group), the click was established as an S(D) for cocaine self-administration. In testing, the putative inhibitor for food was simultaneously presented with the click for the first time in both groups. In the Food-Food Group, the food-based inhibitor suppressed responding occasioned by the click significantly more than did a neutral control stimulus. In contrast, in the Food-Cocaine Group, there was no difference in the amount of suppression produced by the food-based inhibitor and the control stimulus. These results suggest that the effects of food-based Pavlovian conditioned inhibitors are specific for food-motivated behavior and do not easily transfer to cocaine-motivated behavior.
Lombas
Andrés S
AS
Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del País Vasco, Avenida de Tolosa, 70, 20018 San Sebastián, Spain.
Kearns
David N
DN
Weiss
Stanley J
SJ