One-trial simultaneous and backward excitatory fear conditioning in rats: Lick suppression, freezing, and rearing to CS compounds and their elements

Abstract

Three experiments with rat subjects sought to enhance one-trial excitatory simultaneous and backward fear conditioning by using a two-element compound conditioned stimulus (CS) instead of only a single element. During conditioning, experimental groups received a 4-sec CS either coextensively with a 1-mA grid-shock unconditioned stimulus (US) or immediately after US termination. In subsequent tests, CSs evoked more lick suppression and freezing in these groups than in various controls. Compound CSs evoked more lick suppression and freezing than did CS elements, but did so equally for experimental and control groups. Therefore, the use of compounds did not enhance conditioning. Unexpectedly, an explicitly unpaired control in which CS followed US termination by 3 min tended to show more CS-evoked suppression and freezing than did a control in which CS preceded US onset by 3 min. This result raises the possibility that associations between the CS and the training context might engender responding to backward-paired CSs.