Pharmacological and anatomical dissociation of two types of habituation.

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Abstract
Notes that both the exploration of a novel environment (an operant response) and the startle response (an elicited response) share certain functional characteristics (e.g., both response measures wane as a function of exposure and show spontaneous recovery). This commonality has led to the assumption that both measures can be used as an index of a common process of habituation. Results of the present 2 experiments with a total of 96 CFE and 10 Sprague-Dawley male albino rats show that scopolamine (but not methyl scopolamine) greatly impaired habituation of exploration but had no direct effect upon habituation of startle. Medial septal lesions impaired the rate of habituation in both cases. These differential effects imply that (a) contrary to previous conceptualizations, the 2 measures of habituation do not reflect a unitary process; and (b) anticholinergic drugs and medial septal damage do not influence the same neural substrate in terms of behavioral inhibition. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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