Consummatory Successive Negative Contrast in Rats

Ana María Jiménez-García; Leandro Ruiz-Leyva; Ana Vázquez-Ágredos; Carmen Torres; Mauricio R Papini; Cruz Miguel Cendán; Ignacio Morón

doi:10.21769/BioProtoc.3201

Consummatory Successive Negative Contrast in Rats

Bio Protoc. 2019 Apr 5;9(7):e3201. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.3201.

Authors

Ana María Jiménez-García¹, Leandro Ruiz-Leyva¹, Ana Vázquez-Ágredos¹, Carmen Torres², Mauricio R Papini³, Cruz Miguel Cendán^{1

4}, Ignacio Morón⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacology, Biomedical Research Center (CIBM) and Institute of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Parque Tecnológico de Ciencias de la Salud, 18016, Granada, Spain.
² Department of Psychology, University of Jaén, Campus Las Lagunillas, 23071, Jaén, Spain.
³ Department of Psychology, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, 76129, USA.
⁴ Biosanitary Research Institute, University Hospital Complex of Granada, 18012, Granada, Spain.
⁵ Department of Psychobiology and Research Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Faculty of Psychology, Campus Cartuja, 18071, Granada, Spain.

Abstract

Using animal models in addiction and pain research is pivotal to unravel new pathways and mechanisms for the treatment of these disorders. Reward devaluation through a consummatory successive negative contrast (cSNC) task has shown the ability to reduce physical pain sensitivity (hypoalgesia) and increase oral ethanol consumption in rats. The procedure is based on exposing the experimental animals to a 32% sucrose solution during several sessions (preshift sessions) followed by a devaluation to 4% sucrose during the next few sessions (postshift sessions). The cSNC effect can be monitored by comparing the experimental group to an unshifted control that had access to 4% sucrose throughout the entire experiment (preshift and postshift sessions). The cSNC phenomenon is defined by lower consumption of sucrose in the downshifted group than in the unshifted group during postshfit sessions.

Keywords: Addiction; Anxiety; Emotion; Frustration; Pain; Psychological pain; Rats; Reward loss; Successive negative contrast.