Evidence for impulsivity in the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat drawn from complementary response-withholding tasks.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The inability to inhibit reinforced responses is a defining feature of ADHD associated with impulsivity. The Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR) has been extolled as an animal model of ADHD, but there is no clear experimental evidence of inhibition deficits in SHR. Attempts to demonstrate these deficits may have suffered from methodological and analytical limitations.

Methods

We provide a rationale for using two complementary response-withholding tasks to doubly dissociate impulsivity from motivational and motor processes. In the lever-holding task (LHT), continual lever depression was required for a minimum interval. Under a differential reinforcement of low rates schedule (DRL), a minimum interval was required between lever presses. Both tasks were studied usin

SUBMITTER: Sanabria F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2276225 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature