characterizing operant hyperactivity in the spontaneously hypertensive rat描述操作在自发性高血压大鼠多动.pdfVIP

Hill et al. Behavioral and Brain Functions 2012, 8:5 /content/8/1/5 RESEARCH Open Access Characterizing operant hyperactivity in the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat * Jade C Hill, Katrina Herbst and Federico Sanabria Abstract Background: Operant hyperactivity, the emission of reinforced responses at an inordinately high rate, has been reported in children with ADHD and in the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR), the most widely studied animal model of ADHD. The SHR emits behavior at hyperactive levels, relative to a normoactive strain, only when such behavior is seldom reinforced. Because of its dependence on rate of reinforcement, operant hyperactivity appears to be driven primarily by incentive motivation, not motoric capacity. This claim was evaluated in the present study using a novel strategy, based on the organization of behavior in bouts of reinforced responses separated by pauses. Method: Male SHR, Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) and Wistar rats (WIS) were exposed each to a multiple variable-interval schedule of sucrose reinforcement (12, 24, 48, 96, and 192 s) between post-natal days (PND) 48 and 93. Responding in each schedule was examined in two epochs, PND 58-62 and 89-93. Parameters of response- reinforcement functions (Herrnstein’s hyperbola) and bout-organized behavior were estimated in each epoch. Results: SHR emitted higher response rates than WKY and WIS, but only when rate of reinforcement was low (fewer than 2 reinforcers per minute), and particularly in the second epoch. Estimates of Herrnstein’s hyperbola parameters suggested the primacy of motivational over motoric factors driving the response-rate differential. Across epochs and schedules, a more detailed analysis of response bouts by SHR revealed that these were shorter than those