Biomedical subjects

T L Davidson

Publications and source records attributed to T L Davidson.

42 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

PubMed1987

The long-term effects of diazepam and pentylenetetrazol on behavioral sensitivity to a stressor.

Rats were trained to bar press for sucrose reinforcement following daily injections of 20 mg/kg pentylenetetrazol (PTZ), 5 mg/kg diazepam (DZ), or saline. At the end of 12 days of this training, all injections were suspended for the remainder of the experiment. Five days later, the rats were given 10 days of Pavlovian fear conditioning (two trials per day) to establish a light as a shock signal. Next, the rats were returned to the bar press situation to test the capacity of the light to suppress responding. Rats previously treated with DZ showed stronger conditioned fear of the light than did rats originally trained following injections of either PTZ or saline. In contrast, bar pressing by PTZ-treated rats was less suppressed by light than was control performance. The results indicate that modification of the behavioral effects of environmental stressors can be a long-term consequence of drug treatments. DZ treatments had the long-term effect of increasing behavioral disruption by a stressor, while treatment with PTZ reduced the stressor's negative behavioral impact. These findings appear compatible with the idea that behavioral sensitivity to stressors is dependent, in part, on learning about the stimulus properties of internal states.

Animals↗

PubMed1987

Learning about deprivation intensity stimuli.

Rats demonstrated that they can use deprivation-produced stimuli as discriminative signals for shock in three experiments that used observation of freezing behavior as the index of learning. In Experiment 1, one group was shocked under 24-hr, but not under 0-hr food deprivation. Another group received the reversed discrimination. Both groups froze more under their shocked than under their nonshocked deprivation level. Furthermore, freezing was greatest under a given deprivation level for the group shocked under that level. Behavior was shown to be a function of this learning during subsequent testing under other deprivation levels. In Experiment 2, rats discriminated between deprivation intensities approximating those encountered under free-feeding conditions, and behavior under other deprivation levels also depended on this learning. Experiment 3, using 6- and 23-hr food deprivation, showed that discriminative responding occurred in the absence of cues arising from the recent memory of food in the home cage. Generalization of discriminative control to cues produced by intubation of a high calorie load and to injection of insulin (Experiment 3A) provided evidence that animals learned about the interoceptive stimulus consequences of their deprivation states. The results encourage the view that learning about internal stimulus aspects of food deprivation plays a role in appetitive behavior.

Animals↗

PubMed1980

Localization of fluorescent compounds in the firefly light organ.

Two fluorescent materials have been localized in the adult firefly light organ by fluorescence microscopy. One of these is located in photocyte granules, has a maximum emission between 510 and 540 nm, is more fluorescent in basic than acidic solution, and is unstable in ultraviolet light, phosphomolybdic acid, and potassium permanganate. It is thought to be luciferin. The fluorescence of this material is very dim in untreated fireflies but increases substantially following sustained light emission induced by synephrine or prolonged electrical stimulation. It is suggested that the luciferin of untreated animals is bound in the granules and that binding suppresses its fluorescence. The second fluorescent material is located in the dorsal layer of the light organ, particularly in the cells bordering on the photogenic layer. This material has a maximum emission between 510 and 520 nm, is relatively stable in ultraviolet light, and rapidly disappears when light organs are exposed to water. Its identity and function are unknown.

Animals↗

PubMed1979

Control of instrumental behavior by deprivation stimuli.

In Experiment 1, rats were given one trial per day in a straight alley under food deprivation on half of the trials and under water deprivation on the other half. Wet mash was available in the goal box under food deprivation for Group H and under water deprivation for Group T, the other deprivation being nonrewarded for each group. After 15--18 trials both groups ran significantly faster on their rewarded than on their nonrewarded deprivation days. A third group showed that random variation of alley color retarded formation of the discrimination. A fourth group was run in a conditional discrimination in which under food deprivation wet mash was available in a black alley, nonreward in a white alley, and vice versa under water deprivation. This group took 114 trials to begin running significantly faster in their rewarded than in their nonrewarded alley under each deprivation. In Experiment 2, it was shown that prior learning about deprivation cues "blocks" learning about alley color when alley color is subsequently presented in compound with the deprivation cue but that when both alley color and deprivation cues are relevant from the start of training, the rat learns about both cues. It is suggested that previous studies have underestimated the importance of deprivation cues by using conditional discrimination designs, choice measures rather than speeds, and parameters that are not optimal for discrimination learning.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The effects of NPY and 5-TG on responding to cues for fats and carbohydrates.

Previous research has shown that glucoprivic and lipoprivic metabolic challenges selectively augment the performance of appetitive responses conditioned to carbohydrate- and fat-associated cues, respectively. The present experiment investigated whether intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) infusion of neuropeptide Y (NPY) has a similar selective effect on appetitive behavior. We trained rats to associate two different conditioned stimuli (CSs) with two different macronutrient (peanut oil and sucrose pellets) unconditioned stimuli (USs). After training, the rats were food sated and responding to each CS was then tested in extinction. In one test session, the effects of NPY were compared to isotonic saline. A second test compared the effects of these two treatments with i.c.v. infusion of the glucose antimetabolite 5-thio-d-glucose (5-TG). Replicating our earlier result, 5-TG selectively promoted conditioned responding to the CS for sucrose pellets. In contrast, the capacity of NPY to promote appetitive behavior did not depend on the macronutrient that was signaled by the CS. These results suggest that NPY and 5-TG promote appetitive behavior via different mechanisms.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The role of the hypothalamic melanocortin system in behavioral appetitive processes.

Much evidence suggests that the hypothalamic melanocortin (MC) system plays an important role in the control of food intake. However, investigations of the potential behavioral mechanisms have been limited to measures of aversion. The purpose of the present experiment was to assess whether other behavioral consequences of administration of MC peptides were similar to those produced by 0- or 24-h food deprivation, respectively. Rats were first trained while food deprived that a tone predicted the delivery of peanut oil. They then received exposure to oil under food deprivation, satiation, intra-third-cerebroventricular (i3vt) infusion of MTII (a potent MC agonist) or SHU-9119 (a potent MC antagonist). All rats were then tested during extinction for levels of responding to the tone under food satiation. Previous results demonstrated that sated exposure reduces subsequent test responding to the tone. During the present extinction test, rats that received sated exposure exhibited reduced responding to the tone, relative to rats that received deprived exposure. Unlike satiation, rats that received exposure after MTII exhibited continued high levels of responding to the tone. Further, rats that received SHU-9119 exhibited a small reduction in responding. These data suggest that MTII and SHU-9119 do not influence intake via the same mechanisms as hunger and food satiation, respectively.

Animals↗