[Effects of bilateral amygdalectomy on levers pressing for food reward in the rabbit (author's transl)].

Effects for continuous reinforcement (CRF) learning and differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL) learning for food in the rabbit by bilateral amygdalectomy were examined with the Skinner box. There was no changes in general behaviour and no impediment of CRF learning. But the completion of DRL learning was delayed by amygdalectomy. In the stage of completion of DRL learning there was no difference of total number of the reinforcement and the lever pressing between the control group and amygdalectmized group. But there was the impediment of DRL learning by the analysis of frequency distribution of inter-response time and of transition probability matrix in the amygdalectimized group. We thought that this impediment of DRL learning was due to the impediment of selection of decision of lever pressing action. The memory of the preamygdalectomy was maintained well after amygdalectomy.