Runway performance of rats for brain-stimulation or food reward: Effects of hunger and priming.

Abstract

In a runway paradigm, pretrial electric stimulation of the brain (ESB), food deprivation, and to a lesser extent water deprivation increased the running speed of rats to an ESB reward. The trial-by-trial course of the change in running speed after the manipulation of food deprivation resembled the steplike performance effect seen when pretrial priming ESB is changed rather than the incremental learning effect seen when the response contingent ESB is changed. In a second experiment, pretrial ESB inhibited running for food. Hunger and pretrial ESB enhance rats' performance for an ESB reward, but act in opposing directions on rats' performance for a food reward. Implications for Deutsch's model of self-stimulation are discussed.

Nicotinic Acetylcholine α4β2 Receptor Regulates the Motivational Effect of Intracranial Self Stimulation Behavior in the Runway Method

“…Priming stimulation strength is the variable factor for the motivation after the goal lever is pressed in the runway method (25). Therefore, running speed indicates the scale of the motivational effect with ICSS behavior.…”

The priming effect of food persists following blockade of dopamine receptors

“…Priming can thus direct behavior toward pursuing a primed reward over competing rewards. In a runway paradigm, rats ran faster to the goal box after having received pretrial priming stimulation in the start box (Gallistel, ; Gallistel et al., ; Reid et al., ; Stellar & Gallistel, ), thus demonstrating the potentiating effect of priming on the vigor of reward‐seeking behavior.…”

Priming of Darkness-Rewarded Runway Responses in the American Cockroach (Periplaneta Americana)

“…INTRODUCTION When a stimulus that possesses positively reinforcing properties is briefly presented independently of an organism's behavior, the result is often some sort of response enhancement (particularly of a previously acquired instrumental response) immediately following the stimulus presentation. Rats trained in a runway with brain stimulation reward, for example, run faster when pretrial brain stimulation "primes" are administered (18). Comparable response-enhancement has been demonstrated with milk (17), Noyes pellets (6), water (12, 14, p. 21), an imprinting object (7), and the rewarding stimulation from a releaser of aggression (1 1).…”