Classical conditioning during nitrous oxide treatment: influence of varying the interstimulus interval

Classical conditioning of the rabbit nictitating membrane response (NMR) was accomplished by presenting a 75-ms tone conditioned stimulus (CS) at intervals of 0, 100, 200, 400, and 800 ms before the presentation of a 100-ms shock unconditioned stimulus. Following every four paired trials (tone followed by shock), the occurrence of conditioned responses (CRs) was tested on every fifth trial in which only tone was presented (test trials). Three doses of nitrous oxide in oxygen (0, 33, and 67%) were used during conditioning. Nitrous oxide produced dose-dependent decrements of learning. Conditioned responding was related to the interstimulus interval (ISI) by a concave-down function. The higher dose of nitrous oxide caused more decrements of learning at several ISIs compared to the other two doses, changing the shape of the curve. Trace conditioning, which was examined in the present study, was more impaired under the influence of nitrous oxide than conditioning in a previous study, which used the standard delay paradigm. Thus, the drug impairs explicit memory more than implicit memory.