Effects of scopolamine and propranolol on a treatment that facilitates recovery from frustration

PSYDERLLIS M; PAUTASSI R.M.; JUSTEL N

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 2nd Congress of the Federation of Latin-American and Caribbean Societies for Neuroscience (FALAN); 2016

SAN

Frustration can be defined as an emotional state generated by the omission or devaluation in the quantity or quality of an expected appetitive reward. This phenomenon is known as incentive relativity, and can be studied by successive negative contrast (cSNC: a sudden shift from a highly appetitive reward, 32% sucrose solution, to a less preferred one, 4% sucrose solution). The exploration of a novel open field (OF) is a complex situation that involves several behavioral processes, including stress induction and novelty detection. OF exposure can enhance or block the acquisition of associative and non-associative memories. The central cholinergic and noradrenergic systems have been implicated in learning, memory processes and in the modulation of novelty-induced arousal . These experiments evaluated the effect of OF exploration after the acquisition of the downshifted memory on frustration (Experiment 1) and the role played by the cholinergic (Experiment 2) and noradrenergic (Experiment 3) systems in this phenomenon. Rats that explored an OF after the induction of frustration exhibited a faster recovery from this situation.This effect was block by the administration of antagonists of the cholinergic and adrenergic system. The present results consolidate the notion that exposure to novelty represents a simple, yet valuable behavioral treatment for recovery from incentive loss.