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Characterization Of Nicotine’S Ability To Serve As A Negative Feature In A Pavlovian Appetitive Conditioning Task In Rats, Rick A. Bevins, Jamie L. Wilkinson, Matthew I. Palmatier, Hannah L. Siebert, Steven M. Wiltgen

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Rationale Pavlovian feature negative discriminations have been widely used to understand inhibitory conditioning processes using exteroceptive stimuli. Comparatively little is known about inhibitory conditioning processes using a drug state as a negative feature. A negative feature signals that presentation of a conditional stimulus (CS) will not be paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Objectives: The present research examined whether nicotine served as a negative feature and started characterizing its properties. Methods and results: In acquisition, rats received intermixed saline and nicotine (0.4 mg/kg, base) sessions. On saline sessions, a 15-s light CS was paired with 4-s access to sucrose; the CS …