Sex differences in the acquisition of appetitively motivated learning in rats

Abstract

Learning ability of male and female rats (70 and 100 days old) was compared on different learning tasks. No evidence was found for sex-related differences at the age of 70 days, but the 100-day-old males learned a discrimination task with chain schedules better than females. In a stimulus discrimination task females suppressed bar-pressing while males only reduced their response rates when wrong responses were punished with shock. Males and females failed to learn an active avoidance response. They only learned to terminate the shocks. Differences between 100-day-old males and females in the performance of the appetitively motivated tasks are explained by differences in food motivation.