Learning not to be impulsive: disruption by experience of alcohol withdrawal

Abstract

Chronic ethanol treatment impaired the ability to learn to modify behaviour in order to gain access to reinforcement more frequently. This effect was related to the time since withdrawal.

The influence of test experience and NK1 receptor antagonists on the performance of NK1R-/- and wild type mice in the 5-Choice Serial Reaction-Time Task

“…However, there are reports that premature responses by outbred (wild type) Lister hooded rats do not change on repetition of the LITI (Besson et al, 2010), as was found here with our mice. By contrast, repetition of the VITI test does reduce premature responses by inbred C57BL/6J mice (Walker et al, 2011), as was also found here in the NK1R-/-strain. The transient increase in premature responses in NI-2, when wild types were tested in the VITI, could arise from the pause between testing in NI-1 and NI-2; but, if so, it remains to be explained why this did not happen in the LITI or in NK1R-/-mice, as well.…”

Measuring impulsivity in mice: the five-choice serial reaction time task

“…The timeout might be signalled by a period of darkness (e.g. Hoyle et al 2006;Oliver et al 2009;Walker et al 2011) or might be signalled by the illumination of the house light (Davies et al 2007;Humby et al 1999;Kerr et al 2004;Lambourne et al 2007;Wrenn et al 2006;Young et al 2004). Responses in the holes during the timeout period may restart the timeout (Greco and Carli 2006).…”

“…Once stable baseline levels had been achieved, the animals were tested in four vITI sessions (Day 14, Day 28, Day 42 and Day 56) in which the stimulus predictability was disrupted by varying the ITI from 2 to 15 s. The number of premature responses exacerbated at longer ITIs. Premature responding decreased over sessions (Walker et al 2011) In the vITI condition, the stimulus can be presented using different inter-trial delays, for example, 4-6-8-10s, in a semi-random fashion, within a single session. By disrupting the temporal predictability of the stimulus onset, the possibility of mice using temporal mediating strategies is minimised.…”

“…By disrupting the temporal predictability of the stimulus onset, the possibility of mice using temporal mediating strategies is minimised. Although mainly implemented in a single session, it may also be interesting to repeat the vITI procedure more than once to study the evolution of the behaviour and analyse how impulsive responses show adaptation over time and/or repeated testing (Walker et al 2011). In rats, when introducing a vITI condition, at the longest ITI values, levels of premature responding are increased (Fletcher et al 2007).…”

Exaggerated Waiting Impulsivity Associated with Human Binge Drinking, and High Alcohol Consumption in Mice

“…Therefore, having established that 5CSRTT waiting impulsivity was associated with human binge drinking, we asked whether waiting impulsivity in alcohol-naïve mice predicted alcohol drinking in two widely used B6 and D2 inbred strains, that also differ in alcohol consumption (Crabbe et al, 1994). We have previously reported (Walker et al, 2011) that prior exposure to high alcohol concentrations over several weeks in adult hood has only transitory effects in increasing impulsivity in B6 mice. We predicted greater impulsivity in the highethanol-preferring mice indicating a potential causal relationship between waiting impulsivity and high alcohol consumption.…”