Effect of internal and external cues on the heart rate of the rat.

Abstract

The HR of rats placed in a Skinner box where they press on a bar for water reinforcement increased linearly with length of pretrial water deprivation. The HR recorded in the same rats while they remain in their living cages two hours before being placed in the Skinner box shows a lower but parallel increase related to duration of deprivation. However the HR recorded in similar conditions on a second group of rats who are never placed in the bar-pressing situation is much lower and shows no increase with the prolongation of water deprivation. These variations in HR are interpreted as an activation effect depending on the interaction between an internal state of deprivation and the related meaning of external cues.

The effects of water and food deprivation on the heart rate of rats

“…The results of the present study, however, seem to disagree with a conclusion drawn by O'Kelly et al (1965) and Ducharme (1966), and suggest that the HR is influenced by at least two concomitant conditions: dehydration and metabolic rate. For the water-deprivation group in our experiment, the amount of food consumption sharply decreased as the duration of water deprivation increased and the amount of food intake was almost null at the fourth day of deprivation.…”

“…Thus, the independent variable of the obtained linear function is clearly the duration of water deprivation. Our result, therefore, does not support Ducharme's (1966) statement that " ... depriving an animal of water cannot per se produce a direct physiological effect leading to an increase in HR ... [po 103). "…”

“…Hufford and Chambers reported, at the Midwestern Psychological Association Meeting in 1963, that HR did not increase as a function of the deprivation of water as reported by Belanger and Feldman, but it decreased in an apparent linear fashion from about 390 bpm to 350 bpm over a deprivation period extending up to 72 h. In this experiment, Ss were not engaged in operant activities at the time of HR recording. Ducharme (1966) also reports that " ... within a normal range, depriving an animal of water cannot per se produce a direct physiological effect leading to an increase in HR and that the conditions of deprivation alone have no appreciable influence on the level of activation as measured by change in HR [po 103]." Recently Eisman (1966) reported that HR does not vary as a function of water deprivation if confounding factors, such as (a) handling, (b) adaptation to deprivation, and (c) schedules of drinking, are well controlled, but that HR changes as a function of consummatory activity.…”

Analgesic, Heart Rate, and Temperature Effects of Δ⁸-THC during Acute and Chronic Administration to Conscious Rats

“…Heart-rate change in rats is a sensitive index of arousal and of 'affective' states produced by environmental stimuli that modify behavior (5,9), and might signal, as well, the kind of discriminable interna] state induced pharmacologically by THC (19) that can act to punish strongly preferred behaviors (7).…”

Effects of differential relevance of external stimuli on heart rate under food deprivation

“…It is this aspect of the interaction hypothesis that is the main concern of the present study. Ducharme (1966) found that the HR of rats under a given level of water deprivation was higher in a Skinner box, where water was actually ingested, than it was in the presence of stimuli-handling and the attachment o f recording leads-that heralded placement in the Skinner box and the receipt of primary reinforcement. In turn, this latter level was higher than that in a control group of equally deprived rats, where the same stimuli had no eue function.…”