Strain Differences Occurring in an Experimental Study of Punishment

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Abstract
Forty-three Sprague-Dawley and 43 Wistar rats were given reward training for 40 trials in a Y-maze. On the next 20 trials, control groups were continued under the same training procedure, and 50% shock trials were introduced in the training of the remaining rats. For the extinction training, the reward was shifted to the opposite arm and 50% shock was continued for the no-delay and 30-sec. delay shock groups. The most significant results were that in the 30-sec. delay groups, the delay helped the Sprague-Dawley rats reverse in a minimum number of trials, whereas the Wistar rats showed strong indications of response stereotypy. The findings with respect to the Sprague-Dawley rats supported the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of delay in overcoming response persistence and the findings on the Wistar rats supported the empirical evidence on omission in punishment. The difference in response to punishment between the two albino strains emphasizes the need for experimental study of strain factors. Experiments should be repeated with several animal strains to remedy over-generalization from single strains and to help elaborate our understanding of the interaction present between punishment and strains.

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