Abstract
This experiment examined the effect of destroying central noradrenergic neurones using the selective neurotoxin N-(2-chloroethyl)-n-ethyl-2-bromobenzylamine (DSP4) on the acquisition of a temporal discrimination and on memory for duration, using a delayed conditional discrimination task. In phase I, rats that had received systemic treatment with DSP4 and vehicle-treated control rats were trained in a series of discrete trials to press lever A following a 2-s presentation of a light stimulus, and lever B following an 8-s presentation of the same stimulus. Following stimulus offset, a response on a panel placed midway between the two levers was required to initiate lever presentation; a single response on either lever resulted in withdrawal of both levers and, in the case of a “correct” response, reinforcer delivery. Both groups acquired accurate discrimination, achieving 90% correct choices within 50 sessions; the DSP4-treated group acquired accurate performance more slowly than the control group. In phase II, delays were interposed between stimulus offset and lever presentation in 50% of the trials. In the absence of a delay, discriminative accuracy was lower in the DSP4-treated group than in the control group. Accuracy declined as a function of post-stimulus delay in both groups; both groups showed a delay-dependent bias towards responding on lever A (“choose-short” bias). Neither of these effects differed significantly between the two groups. The concentrations of noradrenaline in the parietal cortex and hippocampus were reduced by 90% and 89% in the DSP4-treated group, compared to the levels in the control group, but the levels of dopamine, 5-hydroxytryptamine and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid did not differ significantly between the groups. The results confirm the deleterious effect of DSP4 on the acquisition of temporal discrimination, but do not provide evidence for a role of the noradrenergic innervation of the hippocampus and neocortex in temporal working memory.
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Received: 8 July 1996/Final version: 2 October 1996
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Al-Zahrani, S., Al-Ruwaitea, A., Ho, MY. et al. Destruction of central noradrenergic neurones with DSP4 impairs the acquisition of temporal discrimination but does not affect memory for duration in a delayed conditional discrimination task. Psychopharmacology 130, 166–173 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002130050225
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002130050225