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- Creators: Department of Psychology
Description
The purpose of the present study was to evaluate if the size of food items is an important dimension of food incentive in rats. The experiment involved training rats on a T-maze with 1, 45 mg pellet and 7, 5 mg pellets in one alternative and 8, 10 mg pellets in the other alternative. Results from this study indicated that the rats showed preference for the alternative that contained the 1, 45 mg pellet surrounded by 7, 5 mg pellets. Thus, rats preferred the food set that contained the larger sized food unit to an equicaloric food set with only smaller sized food units. In regards to running speed, no significant differences were found for either alternative of food. Results from this study indicated that the apparent size of an item could be a factor in the incentive value of food and perhaps, rats used size as a heuristic, placing a higher incentive value on the food set that contained the larger sized food unit than one containing only smaller sized food units.
ContributorsAnderson, Ashley Linnea (Author) / Phillips, Elizabeth Capaldi (Thesis director) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Cohen, Adam (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Incentive salience is a motivational-cognitive process that can transform an otherwise neutral stimulus into something that is wanted. The prolonged use of nicotine appears to enhance incentive salience; it has been suggested that the nicotinic enhancement of incentive salience contributes to the potential of relapse in individuals with tobacco addiction. In order to determine whether (a) nicotinic enhancement of incentive salience for non-nicotinic stimuli occurs when rats self-administer nicotine and (b) a history of nicotine use facilitates such enhancement, rats were trained in a morning self-administration paradigm (SA), in combination with an afternoon 4-CS Pavlovian conditioned approach task (PCA) for 24 days. SA was followed by extinction and cue reinstatement. Nicotine SA enhanced incentive salience in the PCA. Upon extinction, incentive salience quickly declined to saline levels, indicating that the nicotinic enhancement of incentive salience is transient. Experimenter-administered nicotine enhanced incentive salience similarly regardless of nicotine history, suggesting that a previous history of nicotine use does sensitize the nicotinic enhancement of incentive salience. Taken together, these results suggest that nicotine must be onboard for the expression of nicotinic enhancement of incentive salience. This suggests that the role of incentive salience in the development and relapse of tobacco addiction may need to be revisited.
ContributorsOverby, Paula F. (Author) / Sanabria, Federico (Thesis director) / Gipson-Reichardt, Cassandra (Committee member) / Beckmann, Joshua (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05