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Science 20 October 1978:
Vol. 202. no. 4365, pp. 327 - 329
DOI: 10.1126/science.694538
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Articles

Science, Vol 202, Issue 4365, 327-329
Copyright © 1978 by American Association for the Advancement of Science

articles

Effects of the home environment on withholding behaviors and conditioning in infant and neonatal rats

GJ Smith and NE Spear

Rats 16 days old received passive-avoidance training in the presence or absence of home litter cues. Rats trained in the context of home litter cues learned the passive avoidance reliably faster than rats trained in isolation. In the presence of home litter cues, 16-day-old rats also exhibited more adultlike spontaneous alternation. Pavlovian conditioning of rats trained at 2 days of age was studied in the presence and absence of conspecifics. These experiments suggest that deficiencies in inhibitory behaviors and conditioning associated with immaturity can be alleviated when the testing environment is made more similar to the home environment.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Suckling infant rats learn a preference for a novel olfactory stimulus paired with milk delivery.
S. Brake (1981)
Science 211, 506-508
   Abstract »    PDF »
Environmental influences on body weight and behavior in developing rats after neonatal 6-hydroxydopamine.
D. Pearson, M. Teicher, B. Shaywitz, D. Cohen, J. Young, and G. Anderson (1980)
Science 209, 715-717
   Abstract »    PDF »


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