Effects of electroconvulsive shock and puromycin on operant responding in goldfish

Goldfish were conditioned to strike an operandum for food reward on a variable interval schedule. Well-established patterns of operant responding were disrupted for up to several days when the fish were convulsed by a 1 sec transcranial shock immediately following a regular daily session. No lasting interference was seen when fish were shocked 19.5 hr postsession. The results suggest that the convulsive shock has aversive consequences which can be conditioned to stimuli associated with the training environment in a single presentation. Intracranial administration of 170 [mu]g of puromycin immediately following a session did not disrupt responding.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34129/1/0000413.pd