Dataset Information

Characterization of operant social interaction in rats: effects of access duration, effort, peer familiarity, housing conditions, and choice between social interaction vs. food or remifentanil.

ABSTRACT:

Rationale and objective

Social factors play a critical role in drug addiction. We recently showed that rats will abstain from methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and remifentanil self-administration when given a choice between the addictive drug and operant social interaction. Here, we further characterized operant social interaction by determining the effects of access duration, effort, peer familiarity, and housing conditions. We also determined choice between social interaction vs. palatable food or remifentanil.

Methods

We first trained single-housed male and female rats to lever-press for social interaction with a sex- and age-matched peer. Next, we determined effects of access duration (3.75 to 240 s), effort (increasing fixed-ratio schedule requirements or progressive ratio schedule), peer familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar), and housing conditions (single vs. paired housing) on social self-administration. We also determined choice between social interaction vs. palatable food pellets or intravenous remifentanil (0, 1, 10 µg/kg/infusion).

Results

Increasing access duration to a peer decreased social self-administration under fixed ratio but not progressive ratio schedule; the rats showed similar preference for short vs. long access duration. Social self-administration under different fixed ratio requirements was higher in single-housed than in paired-housed rats and higher for a familiar vs. unfamiliar partner in single-housed but not paired-housed rats. Response rates of food-sated rats under increasing fixed-ratio requirements were higher for palatable food than for social interaction. The rats strongly preferred palatable food over social interaction and showed dose-dependent preference for social interaction vs. remifentanil.

Conclusions

We identified parameters influencing the reinforcing effects of operant social interaction and introduce a choice procedure sensitive to remifentanil self-administration dose.

SUBMITTER: Chow JJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10724845 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Characterization of operant social interaction in rats: effects of access duration, effort, peer familiarity, housing conditions, and choice between social interaction vs. food or remifentanil.

Chow Jonathan J JJ Beacher Nicholas J NJ Chabot Jules M JM Oke Marvellous M Venniro Marco M Lin Da-Ting DT Shaham Yavin Y

Psychopharmacology 20220301 7

<h4>Rationale and objective</h4>Social factors play a critical role in drug addiction. We recently showed that rats will abstain from methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and remifentanil self-administration when given a choice between the addictive drug and operant social interaction. Here, we further characterized operant social interaction by determining the effects of access duration, effort, peer familiarity, and housing conditions. We also determined choice between social interaction vs. pala ...[more]

PMID: 35230469

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Project description:A plethora of studies stress students' self-regulated learning (SRL) skills to be conditional for successful learning in school and beyond. In general, self-regulated learners are actively engaged in constructing their own understanding also including the regulation of contextual features in the environment. Within the contextual features, the regulation of peer interaction is necessary, because college courses increasingly require peer learning. This goes along with the increasing interest for online learning settings, due in no small part to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In the present study we explore how social presence (i.e., the degree to which the other person is perceived as physical "real"), social space (i.e., trust building between peers) and sociability (i.e., the degree to which the virtual learning environment supports social presence and social space) are essential elements in the regulation of online peer interaction. To shed light in this matter, higher education students were qualitatively followed for 1 year in an online academic writing course by using retrospective interviews (n = 7) and reflective questions (n = 62). Additionally, for social presence, students' perceptions were quantitatively measured with a validated questionnaire (n = 41). The results show that the planning phase is the most important phase for supporting students' social presence because that is where the regulation of peer interaction becomes important. The sociability has an important role here as well becoming less prominent further on in the self-regulation process. In the SRL follow-up phases, students look for other ways to increase their social presence and social space in order to shape the regulation of peer interaction from a position of trust. In the evaluation phase, students are aware of the importance of social presence but less of social space for the regulation of peer interaction. We conclude with some design principles to facilitate students' regulation of peer interaction in online settings.

Dataset Information

Characterization of operant social interaction in rats: effects of access duration, effort, peer familiarity, housing conditions, and choice between social interaction vs. food or remifentanil.

Rationale and objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Characterization of operant social interaction in rats: effects of access duration, effort, peer familiarity, housing conditions, and choice between social interaction vs. food or remifentanil.

Similar Datasets

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