Vitale Nicholas L, Lewon Matthew
Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno, USA.
Behav Processes. 2023 Nov;213:104967. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2023.104967. Epub 2023 Nov 18.
Previous research has suggested that operant response decrements within experimental sessions are due in part to habituation to the repeated presentation of reinforcers. One way to assess the role of habituation in within-session response decrements is to conduct a test for dishabituation, a phenomenon in which a habituated response to a given stimulus recovers following the presentation of some strong or novel stimulus other than the habituated stimulus. Dishabituation of operant responding has been demonstrated on several occasions in the literature, but studies with non-human subjects have thus far been limited to those using rats and pigeons. Two experiments attempting to replicate these findings with mice were conducted. Two groups of mice nose-poked for a sweetened condensed milk/water reinforcer on either a fixed-ratio 4 or variable-interval 15 s schedule of reinforcement. During testing, baseline sessions were then alternated with two test conditions and a control condition. Test conditions included a 5 s auditory stimulus or flashing of the house light presented mid-session. Control conditions were identical to baseline. Dishabituation was not observed for either group in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, dishabituation was not observed for the fixed-ratio 4 group but was observed for the variable interval 15 s group. Considerations for further study of operant dishabituation in mice are discussed.
先前的研究表明，实验过程中操作性反应的减少部分归因于对强化物重复呈现的习惯化。评估习惯化在实验过程中反应减少方面作用的一种方法是进行去习惯化测试，即对给定刺激的习惯化反应在呈现除习惯化刺激之外的一些强烈或新颖刺激后恢复的现象。文献中已多次证明操作性反应的去习惯化，但迄今为止，对非人类受试者的研究仅限于使用大鼠和鸽子的研究。进行了两项试图用小鼠复制这些发现的实验。两组小鼠在固定比率4或可变间隔15秒的强化程序下，为了加糖炼乳/水强化物而进行鼻触。在测试期间，基线阶段随后与两种测试条件和一种对照条件交替进行。测试条件包括在实验过程中间呈现5秒的听觉刺激或房间灯光闪烁。对照条件与基线相同。在实验1中，两组均未观察到去习惯化。在实验2中，固定比率4组未观察到去习惯化，但可变间隔15秒组观察到了去习惯化。讨论了进一步研究小鼠操作性去习惯化的注意事项。
