Rats Meet Up With Walter White.

Methamohetamine, which is mostly abused in the United States, is made in labs within the United States, but also in Mexico. It can be made easily with over-the-counter medicines such as pseudoephedrine and other dangerous and harmful chemicals. In the article “Explanatory Studies in Sensory Reinforcement in Male Rats: Effects of Methamphetamine,” it describes how scientists studied male rats and how they were affected when given meth. They did a total of two experiments.

The scientists provided rats, that were water- restricted, but had access to food at all times. There were sixteen experimental chambers being used for these experiments, and they were made out of stainless steel grid floors and aluminum front and back panels.

In the first experiment, the scientists studied the response of the Visual reinforce, which is also called VRF. The article says, “In this experiment, we determined if treatment with meth would differentially increase responding for the active response that produced the VRF relative to the inactive alternative response that had no programmed effect.” Also, in this experiment, they wanted examine the session pattern of responding and the effects of meth on this pattern of responding. While in this experiment, the rats were taken into a darker chamber for ten daily, forty minute testing sessions. The responses to both snout poke apertures were written down, but there were no programmed consequences associated with either aperture.  After that, they decided to make the sessions into fifty minutes, instead of forty. After the scientist did that, on page twenty it states, “These results demonstrate that response contingent onset of a light for five s on a VI schedule of reinforcement increased the rate of VRF responding and that the VRF did act as a primary reforcer.” That being said, it responded to the saline and the meth injections. 

Experiment two was examining the choice between visual and water reinforcers.  This experiment found that All three ANOVAs produced a major effect of the session involving the VRF and Ext response, but there was no substantial effect of group effects.

I think that this experiment should have involved female rats as well. With having female rats go through the experiment, it would have given more insight to how meth might effect with treatment. 

Abstract 
Gancarz,A., Ashrafioun, L., George, M., Hausknecht, K., Hawk, L., Richards, J.  (2012).  Explanatory Studies in Sensory Reinforcement in Male Rats: Effects of Methamphetamine.  Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 20(1),16-27