Interactions between Motivational and Discriminative Functions of Motivating Operations in the Renewal of Operant Responding in Mice

Abstract

Renewal is a phenomenon in which a response that has been extinguished recovers when an organism is removed from the setting in which extinction occurred. In most renewal studies, context consists of exteroceptive stimuli (e.g., distinct visual, auditory, tactile, and/or olfactory stimuli). Nevertheless, a number of studies have shown that interoceptive stimuli such as those induced by drugs or food deprivation may come to exert discriminative control over behavior under the relevant contingencies. We investigated how interoceptive organismic conditions brought about through food deprivation and satiation motivating operations (MOs) can serve as contextual cues for the renewal of extinguished operant responding in mice. Three groups of mice received acquisition and extinction sessions under three different combinations of food deprivation and satiation. One group received acquisition sessions while deprived and extinction sessions while satiated. A second group received both acquisition and extinction sessions while satiated. A third group received both acquisition and extinction sessions while deprived. All groups were then tested for renewal under both deprivation and satiation conditions. ABA and AAB renewal were observed for the first two groups under deprivation conditions, but AAB renewal was not observed for the third group under satiation conditions. The results suggest that interoceptive stimuli elicited by MOs may serve as contextual stimuli that occasion the recovery of responding following extinction, but unlike exteroceptive contextual cues, the discriminative functions of these stimuli are accompanied by motivational functions that may affect the extent to which renewal is observed.