Effects of acute and chronic administration of diazepam on delay discounting in Lewis and Fischer 344 rats.

Impulsive choice is often examined using a delay-discounting procedure, where there is a choice between two reinforcers of different magnitudes presented at varying delays. Individual discounting rates can be influenced by many factors including strain differences and drug effects. Lewis (LEW) and Fischer 344 (F344) rats have behavioral and neurochemical differences relevant to delay discounting and were used to examine effects of acute and chronic administration of diazepam on impulsive choice. Consistent with the previous literature, larger-reinforcer choice decreased as a function of increasing delays for all rats, and steeper discounting functions were obtained for LEW relative to F344 rats. Acute and chronic administration of diazepam resulted in differential effects between rat strains and sometimes between subjects within the same rat strain. Overall, larger-reinforcer choice remained unchanged across multiple phases of the experiment for LEW rats. For F344 rats, larger-reinforcer choice increased following the acute administration of smaller doses of diazepam and decreased following the acute administration of the largest dose tested. Decreases in larger-reinforcer choice occurred for F344 rats during chronic and postchronic administration and persisted throughout a nondrug return-to-baseline phase. These results suggest potential directions for future investigation of environmental, genetic, and neurochemical variables involved in delay discounting.