title: Reducing spontaneous recovery and reinstatement of operant performance through extinction-cues.
abstract: It has been argued that the response recovery effects share a common mechanism. A possible way to test it is evaluating whether the techniques that impaired renewal would impair the other recovery effects as well. Two experiments with rats used a free operant procedure to explore whether an extinction-cue could prevent the spontaneous recovery and reinstatement of an extinguished lever-pressing. Both experiments consisted of four phases: Acquisition, Extinction and Test 1 and Test 2. First, all rats were trained to perform one instrumental response (R1) for food in context A, and a different instrumental response (R2) for food in context B. Then, responses were extinguished within the same context: R1 in context A and R2 in context B. Throughout this phase all rats received brief presentations of a tone (extinction-cue). In both experiments animals were tested twice. The first test was conducted immediately after the last extinction session. In this test, rats received the extinction-cue for both responses. During the second test, rats experienced the tone only for R1. In Experiment 1 rats were tested after 5days, while for Experiment 2 test 2 took place after a single session of re-exposure to the food. Both experiments showed a recovery effect (spontaneous recovery in Experiment 1 and reinstatement in Experiment 2) for both responses. However, a cue featured in extinction attenuated recovery of R1 in both experiments when presented on the test. The findings suggest that spontaneous recovery, reinstatement and renewal might share a common mechanism. In addition, the present data shows that using an extinction-cue could help to reduces relapsing of voluntary behaviors.
authors.affiliation: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico. Electronic address: rodolfo.bernalg@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Rodolfo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bernal-Gamboa
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Cádiz, Spain.
authors.forename: A Matías
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Gámez
authors.affiliation: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nieto
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar
keywords: Extinction-cue; Operant conditioning; Rats; Reinstatement; Spontaneous recovery