BIOL 1F25 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Synuclein, Dementia, Miami-Dade County, Florida
25 Feb 2016
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Animal studies looking at links b/w learning and drug addiction. Detrimental effects of cocaine use on cognitive function: Ex. weighing multiple options and making complex decisions. Little known about how long cognitive impairments last after ceasing cocaine use. Cocaine abusers show increases in cognitive functions at 6 months abstinence compared to 6 weeks. All animals trained on touch sensitive screen- no difference in learning this task. 3 shapes- touching only one produces food pellet reward. (operant conditioning) Sd trials: randomized the order of the shapes. New shape gives food pellet (no cue provided). Monkey has to learn that new shape provides food pellet. Sd task: no sig. diff on sd task (through cocaine monkeys needed more trials and more errors). Sdr task: (reversal: significant diff in # trials required and # of errors made by cocaine monkeys, two cocaine monkeys failed to ever learn the reversal task (not included in these data)! Animals were tested weekly for next 3 months.
