A specific arousal effect from barpressing on nonspecific arousal in rats

Abstract

Running-wheel activity and barpressing on either an FR 10 or FI 30-sec schedule of sugar-water reward were recorded, respectively, as measures of nonspecific and specific arousal of rats. The running-wheel activity of all rats was consistent across days and across within-day segments. Also, higher rates of running-wheel activity were associated with higher rates of FR performance but not FI performance. These results showed that nonspecific arousal had a positive relationship with both nonincentive- and incentive-motivated behaviors, although the relationship with the incentive task appeared to depend on whether efficient task performance could be facilitated or not by the higher levels of arousal. A separate effect of specific arousal also was in evidence since higher rates of activity on the running-wheel measure, relative to the previous night, were observed to follow higher rates of FR performance. The findings were interpreted as evidence for separate systems of arousal.