Reconciling differences in drug effects on behavior punished or maintained by response‐produced shock

Abstract

Galbicka, G.: Reconciling differences in drug effects on behavior punished or maintained by response-produced Ishock. Drug Dev. Res. 20:89-99, 1990.Comparable patterns of behavior maintained by different events are affected similarly by certain drugs and differently by others. The present paper argues that patterns of behavior maintained by response-produced shock ("shock-maintained behavior"), although similar in appearance to lever pressing maintained by more conventional positive reinforcers, are generated through differential punishment of long interresponse times; hence, drug effects on this behavior should more closely resemble drug effects on pressing suppressed by punishment. Because the operants suppressed in these procedures are diametrically opposed (long interresportse times vs. pressing), the baseline patterns of behavior will differ (suppressing long interresponse times produces high rates of pressing, punishing pressing produces low rates). Furthermore, any drug-induced changes in the frequency of the punished operant will result in what appear to be dissimilar drug effects if the rate of only one operant class serves as the dependent variable. That is, drugs that increase the rate of pressing that has been suppressed by punishment should increase long interresponse times similarly suppressed. This results in an overall increase in pressing rate under typical punishment procedures, but a decrease in overall pressing rates (an increase in the rate of punished long interresponse times) under shock-maintenance procedures. Hence, similar drug effects on these inversely related operants should generate opposite changes in 90Galbicka pressing rate under the two sets of procedures. A review of the literature revealed this to hold true in 12 of 15 cases. Drug effects on comparable patterns of pressing maintained by shock or food presentation split more evenly. The literature indicates that, of 21 such comparisons between pressing maintained under fixed-interval schedules of food or shock, ten yielded comparable drug effects under both, and 11 yielded dissimilar effects. These results suggest that what appear to be dissimilar drug effects on pressing maintained or suppressed by shock may in fact be similar effects on the inversely related operants differentiated under these procedure.

Preference for Less Frequent Shock Under Fixed‐interval Schedules of Electric‐shock Presentation

“…In this view, the schedule under which shock is presented changes not the stimulus function of shock but rather the behavioral unit upon which shock operates. Support for this view derives from observations that (a) shock-maintained behavior is readily maintained under interval schedules, which possess the property that relatively long IRTs differentially receive consequences, but is not usually maintained under ratio schedules, which do not possess this quality (e.g., Branch & Dworkin, 1981;McKearney, 1972; but see Howell, Byrd, & Marr, 1983), (b) presentation of shock contingent upon relatively long IRTs can result in an increase in the rate of responding conjointly maintained by food presentation (Galbicka & Branch, 1981) or shock avoidance (Galbicka & Platt, 1984), (c) responding is not maintained by shock presentation alone when shock is delivered independently of the current IRT (Galbicka & Platt, 1984), and (d) apparent differences in drug effects on behavior maintained or punished by response-produced shock are reconciled within the context of an IRT-punishment view (Galbicka, 1990). It may have been that lever responding maintained by shock in the present experiment was largely controlled by the differential IRT-punishment relation arranged by the interval schedules, and CO lever pressing (under a ratio schedule) was aversively controlled as discussed above.…”

“…In other areas, equivocal results are obtained. For example, administration of some drugs produce similar effects on comparable rates and patterns of behavior maintained by food and shock presentation, whereas others affect foodand shock-maintained behavior differently (see Galbicka, 1990, for a review).…”