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Updated: Jun 30, 2026

An In Vitro Preparation for Eliciting and Recording Feeding Motor Programs with Physiological Movements in Aplysia californica
Published on: December 5, 2012
[Complex alimentary motor conditioned reflex reactions in cats and dogs]
Abstract:
The ability of animals to perform a complex motor task representing a model of compensatory discrete tracing was investigated in dogs and cats. Elongation of a light spot on an oscilloscope screen into a vertical line served as a signal of motor reaction. The reaction consisted in several movements, each of which reduced the initial signal change by 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 or 1/5 of its value. Alimentary reinforcement was given only after a reduction of the signal to its initial level. Signals with a different number of steps of transition to their initial state were presented at random. It was found that learned animals were capable of a stable behaviour of a compensatory discrete tracing type. A hypothesis has been advanced about a probabilistic participation of visual control in the realization of tracing motor behaviour.
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