Supressão condicionada com diferentes estímulos aversivos: choque elétrico e jato de ar quente

Abstract

A neutral stimulus, once paired to an aversive unconditional stimulus, acquires aversive function of (conditional) and, indirectly, is also able to suppress operant response. This phenomenon was called of "conditioned suppression" and is connected to certain emotional states such as anxiety. The literature shows that, in general, aversive unconditional stimulus used is limited to electric shock: few alternative aversive stimuli tested have been proven effective. However, independently of shock when an aversive unconditional there are other variables that can directly influence the appearance of the phenomenon. In the present study, we examined and compared the production of conditioned suppression with two different aversive stimuli: hot air puff (HAP) and electric shock. Four albino rats were used (Rattus norvegicus, Wistar). The apparatus was two rodent operant conditioning chambers, one for the electric shock and another for a HAP. The subjects were divided into pairs and exposed to the pairing of a neutral stimulus with different aversive stimuli: sound + HAP (J1 and J2 Subject) and sound + electric shock (C1 and C2 Subject). The main results indicated that: when aversive stimulus was electric shock, the suppression was total (suppression ratio equals to 0.0) after 2(C1) or 3(C2) pairings. When aversive stimulus was HAP, the suppression was partial, and were necessary 8 (J1) and 7 (J2) parings to produce suppression ratio equals to 0.5, for one subject, and 0.2 to another. The analysis of other responses showed that on average there was an increase of 83.3% (J1) and 275% (J2) on the frequency of exploratory responses during the presentation of sound, in sessions of pairing with HAP, compared with the presentation of sound in the sessions of habituation, whereas for the subjects exposed to the shock was paired with a deletion of 44.2% (C1) and 57.1% (C2) in such responses. These data show that the suppression caused by the pairing of sound + shock to affect other classes of responses, different from the sound paired with HAP. The suppression produced by HAP seems to have been a result of the increase the in the frequency of exploratory responses. It is possible that the parameter intensity of HAP used in this experiment, was responsible for results. Future researchs are suggested to elucidate this aspect.