Behavioural Neuroscience Poster Session

Poster 0447

Karen K. Szumlinski
ratgirl@sprintmail.com

I find it rather interesting, given that LPR mice display decreased sucrose preference and increased floatatoin during a forced swim test, that they failed to display conditioned place preference. However, if the experimental mice did not display conditioned place preference, then the data would have been more difficult to interpret; the lack of conditioning may have reflected an inability to learn (i.e. make associations between the drug cues and the environmental cues of the lesser preferred chamber), the failure to sense drug cues OR the failure to perceive the drug cues as "rewarding" or "reinforcing". Secondly, given that the mice were conditioned to the least preferred side in your study, is it not possible that your place preference reflects a diminished place aversion? Did the animals make more entrances into the least preferred side as well as spend more time in that side or did the animals display equivalent number of entrances for both sides but simply remained in the least preferred/paired side longer?

Thu Dec 10