Effect of chloropromazine on "aggressive" responding in the rat.

Abstract

Research in the past decade concerning the effects of pharmacological agents on emotional behavior has concentrated on three basic experimental procedures: escape, avoidance, and conditioned emotional response. These designs are said to measure "fear" and "anxiety." The present study proposes to examine the effects of a pharmacological agent on another class of emotional behavior, the increased rate of operant responding with the onset of extinction following a regular reinforcement schedule. This type of behavior has been discussed by several writers within the framework of "frustration-aggression" theory (Bollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, & Sears, 1939), generalized drive theory (Amsel, 1952), or as simply a state of aggression (Keller & Schoenfeld, 1950) or emotion (Skinner, 1938) produced by nonreinforcement. The behavior resulting from withholding positive reinforcement can be characterized as having a markedly increased operant level followed by a depression of the operant curve. It is suggested here that the relative amount of increase in rate of responding is a measure of the amount of emotional arousal. As an index of the degree of "aggression," an extinction inflection ratio is used, modified from the inflection ratio introduced by Hunt, Jernberg, and Brady (1952). The formula used here is: lever presses during 3 min. immediately following the onset of extinction -lever presses during an equivalent period preceding extinction -i-lever presses during the prc-extinction period:Ext. -Pre.Pre.A drug which is effective in reducing "aggression" or interfering with its expression should tend to decrease the inflection ratio of treated animals as compared with saline

The effect of two phenothiazines and a barbiturate on extinction-induced rate increase of a free operant.

“…Subcomparisons indicate that the difference in drug effects is a reflection of the deviation of the phenobarbital group (Fphen x ohl = 8.723, p < .01; -Fphen x thio = 6.680, p < .01), which is very clearly different from the relationship between drug dose and the ataxic effect for all drugs. DISCUSSION A comparison of the chlorpromazine data presented in Figure 2 with the EIRs obtained in the previous study (Thompson, 1961) tends to corroborate the original finding that at a 1.5 mg/kg ip. dose, chlorpromazine animals exhibit a marked rise in EIR.…”

“…An earlier paper introduced a method of analysis of the change in frequency of emission of a lever pressing response induced by the onset of extinction (Thompson, 1961). In that study rats trained to obtain water on a regular reinforcement schedule (CRF) were given a test trial in which 6 min.…”

CONDITIONED ACCELERATION AND CONDITIONED SUPPRESSION IN PIGEONS1

“…Perhaps conditioned acceleration is a quantifiable reflection of anticipated "frustration" like conditioned suppression is supposedly a quantifiable reflection of anticipated "pain." The unconditioned response to omission of reward is heightened activity and emotionality (e.g., Keller and Schoenfeld, 1950, p. 328;Amsel, 1958Amsel, , 1962Notterman, 1959;Wagner, 1959Wagner, , 1963Thompson, 1961Thompson, , 1962. Accordingly, in the present study, it is possible that the energizing effects evoked by TO become conditioned to the pre-TO CS and are reflected by an increase in rate of the predominating, still positivelyreinforced behavior, key pecking.…”

Aggressive behavior and extinction-induced response-rate increase

“…Previous studies by Thompson (1961Thompson ( , 1962 and Thompson, Heistad, & Palermo (1963) have dealt with changes in response rate and duration of operants during extinction. The purpose of the present research was to examine the covariation between the duration of fighting and the tendency for response rate to increase following extinction onset.…”