Peripheral noradrenaline depletion does not impair extinction of food-rewarded running in the rat.

To test whether the sympathetic nervous system influences the inhibition of non-rewarded running in the runway, we examined the effects of peripheral noradrenaline depletion, induced by 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA HBr, 30 mg/kg, i.p.), on extinction of food-rewarded running in rats. This was done in two separate experiments. In the first, in which the inter-trial interval (ITI) was one day and rats were injected before acquisition, running times at the end of extinction did not differ. The 6-OHDA appeared to slow down running times at the end of acquisition and the start of extinction. In the second experiment (15 s ITI) therefore, rats were injected after stable running had been acquired; there was no effect on running in subsequent rewarded trials. In extinction, although the groups ran similarly at first, the 6-OHDA treated animals subsequently ran more slowly than the controls; that is they showed greater extinction. Taken together with other published evidence, the sympathetic nervous system does not appear to contribute to the extinction of continuously reinforced responses.