An experiment was conducted to assess the effectiveness of providing response-contingent stimuli in improving the performance of rats with septal lesions on a DRL schedule of reinforcement. Groups of operated and control animals were given no stimulus, a light flash, or footshock in conjunction with all noncriterion lever presses. Footshock, but not light, was found to substantially ameliorate the lesion-induced DRL deficit. Improved schedule efficiency appeared to result from the punishing aspects of the shock and not to a response-feedback function.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Failure of neonatal clomipramine treatment to alter forced swim immobility: chronic treadmill or activity-wheel running and imipramine.

We examined whether chronic running on a treadmill or activity wheel would attenuate the increased swim immobility that has been reported after neonatal clomipramine (CLI) treatment. Male Sprague-Dawley pups (N = 60) were injected with the monoamine reuptake inhibitor clomipramine hydrochloride (40 mg/kg per day i.p.) from 8 to 21 days of age. Another group (N = 12) received saline vehicle. At age 4 weeks, the CLI pups were randomly assigned to experimental conditions: (1) sedentary; (2) 24-h access to an activity wheel; (3) sedentary that received the antidepressant drug imipramine hydrochloride (10 mg/kg twice daily) during the last 10 days of the experiment; (4) activity wheel + imipramine; (5) treadmill running (30 m/min for 1 h at 0 degrees incline, 6 days/week). At age 16 weeks, rats underwent the Porsolt swim test 48 h after the last imipramine injection and/or the last exercise session. The increase in swim immobility among CLI-treated rats was small (one quarter of SD) and not statistically significant (p>0.10). The results are not consistent with our previous finding of antidepressant-like effects of activity-wheel running based on brain noradrenergic adaptations and enhanced male copulatory performance after neonatal CLI treatment. The lack of change in swim performance after clomipramine questions the generalizability of the CLI model of depression and the validity of the forced swim test as a behavioral measure of depression when it is used after neonatal CLI injection or chronic activity-wheel running.

Adrenergic Uptake Inhibitors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Activity-wheel running blunts suppression of splenic natural killer cell cytotoxicity after sympathectomy and footshock.

We used chemical sympathectomy by 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) to examine whether adaptation by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is a plausible explanation for our prior finding that activity-wheel running blunts the suppression of splenic natural killer cell cytotoxicity after footshock. Male Fischer rats were assigned to treatments using a group (activity wheel vs. sedentary)x treatment (6-OHDA vs. saline)x condition (footshock vs. no shock) design. After 5-6 weeks, rats were injected i.p. with saline or with 40, 80, and 80 mg/kg 6-OHDA on pre experimental days -5, -3, and -1. Half the rats received 6 min of random footshock during a 40-min period. Cytotoxicity was determined by standard 4-h 51Cr release assay. Sympathectomy reduced splenic [NE] by 72%. After 6-OHDA injection and footshock, percent lysis was 33% lower in sedentary rats compared with activity-wheel runners and home-cage controls, p=0.048. The results suggest that activity-wheel running leads to adaptations that offset an altered SNS modulation of splenic NK cell cytotoxicity in response to footshock.

Animals↗