Acquisition and retention of an active avoidance response to intense white noise: Kamin effect

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1973
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Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Abstract

Three experiments were performed to investigate the acquisition and retention of an active avoidance response in rats to intense white noise. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that rats can acquire an active avoidance response to white noise. In Experiment 2 retention of avoidance performance was shown to be a U-shaped function of the retraining intervals (i.e., the Kamin effect) and escape latency performance was an inverted U-shaped function of the retraining intervals. This suggested that the Kamin effect may be mediated by stress-induced behavioral inhibition. The results of Experiment 3 demonstrated that scopolamine, an anticholinergic drug, alters the typical U-shaped avoidance function whereas methylscopolamine, an anticholinergic which produces the same peripheral effects as scopolamine but passes the blood-brain barrier poorly, does not. These results suggested that the underlying mechanism of the Kamin effect may be behavioral inhibition, mediated by stress-induced time-dependent changes in the CNS adrenergic-cholinergic system.

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