Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
Novelty Reward As A Measure Of Anhedonia, Rick A. Bevins, Joyce Besheer
Novelty Reward As A Measure Of Anhedonia, Rick A. Bevins, Joyce Besheer
Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications
A decrease in sensitivity to pleasurable stimuli, anhedonia, is a major symptom of depression in humans. Several animal models have been developed to simulate this symptom (e.g. drug withdrawal, learned helplessness) using reward-sensitive procedures such as intracranial self-stimulation and progressive ratio responding as a measure of reward function. Recently, we introduced the use of another procedure, novel-object place conditioning in rats, to measure reward function in an associative learning situation. Withdrawal from chronic nicotine blocked a place preference conditioned by access to novel objects. This blockade was not due to impairment of object interaction, general activity, novelty detection, environmental familiarization, …