Abstract
Excitatory and inhibitory conditioning of two physiological responses in a group of rats. A differential conditioning of 120 essays was carried out in a four-day period in a group of rats. The stimuli were the following: a light (CS-), a tone (CS+) and an electric discharge (US). After six days, the subjects were randomly subdivided into different groups. Each of the groups was submitted in the trial phase to 15 occurrences of one of the following stimuli: CS+, CS-, US, CS+/CS- and the context. No significant differences were found at the lymphocyte response level (p<0,05). Regarding the protein amount, almost all groups showed higher indexes than the control group. However, only the group submitted to the excitatory stimulus show differences when compared with the control group. In the discussion over the results, two main factors are stressed: the significance of contextual clues in the modification of physiological responses and the importance of inhibitory stimuli in balancing the effects of excitatory conditioning.
