Avoidance conditioning in rats following changes in activity of the noradrenergic and cholinergic systems of the brain.

Bilateral coagulation of the ventral noradrenergic pathways of the brain in male rats of the Wistar strain disrupted the conditioned passive avoidance response after unconditioned stimulation with a current of 0.75 mA. Injecting 10 mg/kg galantamine into these rats 20 min before training and increasing the unconditioned stimulus to 3 mA improved subsequent avoidance responses. Injecting galantamine under analogous conditions into normal rats impaired this reaction. Disruption of the conditioned avoidance response following the operation may be due to a change in the intracentral interrelation of the noradrenergic and cholinergic systems of the brain.