Assessment of sustained attention in ad libitum fed Wistar rats: Effects of MK-801

Two-choice reaction time performance in Sprague–Dawley rats exposed to alcohol during adolescence or adulthood

“…In this model, accuracy is the primary measure of sustained attention. Test conditions requiring more attentional resources, such as recognizing low intensity or briefly presented stimuli, reduce accuracy (Givens, 1997;Mirza and Stolerman, 1998;Presburger and Robinson, 1999;Slawecki and Roth, 2005). In fact, this pattern of decreasing accuracy with increasing task difficulty was observed in this study.…”

“…If this were the case, however, ethanol exposure would have been expected to slow reaction times on correct trials. An alternative explanation is that slowed reaction times on incorrect trails in ethanol-exposed rats might be an exaggeration of the typical increase in reaction time associated with incorrect responses (Mirza and Stolerman, 1998;Bizarro and Stolerman, 2003b;Slawecki and Roth, 2005). If increased incorrect-trial reaction times index indecision, the selective increases in reaction times when incorrect responses were made in the present study might represent an exaggeration of the indecision associated with transient reductions in vigilance.…”

“…This same procedure has also been used by our laboratory (Slawecki and Roth, 2005). Operant training was initiated 1 week after the cessation of ethanol vapor exposure so there was no overlap between ethanol vapor exposure and operant sessions.…”

“…This model was developed to model the cyclical nature of human drinking and has been demonstrated to have lasting neurophysiological and behavioral effects (Slawecki et al, 2001;Slawecki, 2002;Slawecki and Ehlers, 2005). The 2-CRT task employed in the present study has been modified for use in free fed rats and uses 10% sucrose as the reinforcer that maintains operant behavior (Slawecki and Roth, 2005).…”

Western-style diet induces insulin insensitivity and hyperactivity in adolescent male rats

“…Indeed, in our study rats did not perform the ASST until they had lost 15% of their body weight. Food deprivation has been shown to not only increase reward-seeking behavior, but also change motivation [66,67], especially in studies of obesity, where depleted dopamine levels are restored by consumption of cafeteria-style food [65]. The altered motivational state experienced by fooddeprived obese animals may explain why WSD rats showed reduced perseveration compared to control animals in the intradimensional shift.…”