Mechanisms of Pavlovian conditioning: role of protection from habituation in spinal conditioning. Academic Article

abstract

• Conditioned antinociception can be established in spinal rats by pairing stimulation to one hind leg (the conditioned stimulus [CS]) with an intense tailshock (the unconditioned stimulus [US]). After this training, the paired CS (CS+) elicits greater antinociception on the tail-flick test than a CS that was explicitly unpaired (CS-). Five experiments are reported that suggest that this effect reflects protection from habituation. Experiment 1 showed that the CS (legshock) induces antinociception before training. Presenting the CS alone weakened (habituated) its antinociceptive impact (Experiment 2). Less habituation was observed when the CS was paired with the US (Experiment 3). Decreasing habituation to the CS- (by increasing the interval between trials) and facilitating habituation to the CS+ (by increasing the number of trials) effectively eliminated the CS+/CS- difference (Experiments 4 and 5).

authors

• Grau, James

published proceedings

• Behav Neurosci

author list (cited authors)

• Joynes, R. L., & Grau, J. W.

citation count

• 38

complete list of authors

• Joynes, RL||Grau, JW

publication date

• December 1996

publisher

• American Psychological Association (APA)  Publisher

keywords

• Animals
• Association Learning
• Conditioning, Classical
• Electroshock
• Habituation, Psychophysiologic
• Male
• Nociceptors
• Rats
• Rats, Sprague-Dawley
• Spinal Cord

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1037//0735-7044.110.6.1375

start page

• 1375

end page

• 1387

volume

• 110

issue

• 6

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7044.110.6.1375