Prolonged Rewarding Brain Stimulation

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter presents few experiments to test adaptation theory on the rats undergoing prolonged brain reward. In the first experiment, rats run in a T-maze, with a choice between an offset of stimulation and an increase in stimulation after prolonged stimulation. Four rats are run in six conditions each and in the first three conditions, there are no prolonged brain stimulus at the outset. The rats are rewarded with a train of pulses in the goal box. The purpose of the first three conditions is to ascertain whether the intracranial stimulus is rewarding and whether the more intense stimulus is actually more rewarding. In the first condition, the rats are given a choice of 200 pps in one goal without any stimulation in the other goal box. In the second three conditions, the rats are detained in the start box while they are stimulated with 100 pps continuously, at the voltage used previously, for varying periods of time. The objective of the fourth condition is to show that the rats would choose to turn off the stimulation under the conditions of the experiment. If the rat ran to the end of one goal box, the 100 pps stimulus continued until he turned around and ran to the end of the other goal box.