Effects of scopolamine, pentobarbital, and amphetamine on radial arm maze performance in the rat.

Rats were trained to obtain food pellets from the end of each arm of an eight-arm radial maze. Baseline performance was characterized by very few entries into arms from which the food pellet had already been obtained. In Experiment 1, neither d-amphetamine (0.1-3.0 mg/kg) nor pentobarbital (1.0-10.0 mg/kg) affected choice accuracy, although the rate of arm-entry increased after d-amphetamine and decreased after pentobarbital. Scopolamine (0.1-1.0 mg/kg), on the other hand, reduced both accuracy and the rate of arm entry. In a second experiment, the effects of scopoalmine were replicated using a between-subjects design. Methylscopolamine (0.17, 1.0 mg/kg) was found to have little effect on performance. Multiple response criteria were also compared in the second experiment. Scopolamine was found to affect runs farther out the arm differently than it affected abbreviated arm entrances. A post-trial feeding test was also included to evaluate changes in reinforcer effectiveness, and showed that food continued to be a reinforcer after both scopolamine and methylscopolamine.