Mitchell Jennifer M, Cunningham Chris L, Mark Gregory P
Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
Behav Neurosci. 2005 Apr;119(2):464-72. doi: 10.1037/0735-7044.119.2.464.
The current study investigates locomotor activity in a novel environment and correlates these activity levels with cocaine self-administration in rats that were either trained or untrained on a lever-pressing task prior to cocaine self-administration. The authors report that it is the rate of learning the lever-pressing task, not cocaine self-administration, that correlates with locomotor activity. The results suggest that a correlation between locomotor activity and cocaine self-administration is secondary to a link between locomotor activity and rate of learning to lever press for a reward. The authors conclude that locomotor activity is not necessarily an indicator of propensity to self-administer cocaine and demonstrate that environmental novelty and rate of learning an operant task are important considerations when designing experiments on drug-seeking behaviors.
当前的研究调查了大鼠在新环境中的运动活动，并将这些活动水平与可卡因自我给药情况相关联，这些大鼠在进行可卡因自我给药之前，要么接受过杠杆按压任务训练，要么未接受过训练。作者报告称，与运动活动相关的是学习杠杆按压任务的速度，而非可卡因自我给药情况。结果表明，运动活动与可卡因自我给药之间的相关性是运动活动与为获取奖励而学习杠杆按压的速度之间联系的次要结果。作者得出结论，运动活动不一定是自我给药可卡因倾向的指标，并表明在设计关于觅药行为的实验时，环境新奇性和学习操作性任务的速度是重要的考虑因素。
