Effects of post-trial eserine administration, age and task difficulty on avoidance conditioning in rats

Abstract

Rats of three different ages were administered eserine 10 sec., 1 hr., or 4 hr. subsequently to 4 blocks of 10 trials on a simple avoidance or discriminated avoidance problem. Drug treatment 10 sec. after daily trials facilitated performance on both problems of Ss in most age groups. Treatment at the longest post-trial interval improved discriminated avoidance performance only among oldest (730 day) Ss. Results are interpreted in terms of age and task difficulty differences in post-trial neural perseveratory processes.