Behavioural effects of chronic manipulations of dietary choline in senescent rats

1. Senescent rats were maintained on choline-deficient and choline-enriched diets. The modifications in rat behaviour caused by the chronic manipulations of dietary choline were studied in two schedules of operant conditioning. 2. In the "periodic conditioning" test, the schedule of reinforcement, in a 100 min trial, was changed from a fixed ratio to a fixed interval schedule. In the "reversal" test the contingency for food delivery was switched four times from one lever to the other in a two lever Skinner box. 3. In the "periodic conditioning" test, the choline enriched group (430 mg/Kg/day) showed the same reduction of responses/reinforcement as controls, from the beginning to the end of trial; in the same group the time course reduction of responses/reinforcement became significant earlier than in the control group. The deficient-choline group in the last 40 min of "periodic conditioning" trial gave a reduction of responses/reinforcement greater than controls and one rat in the group did not learn the change of experimental schedule and extinguished its operant behaviour. 4. In the "reversal" test, the choline-enriched diet (320 mg/Kg/day) improved the reinforced responses in the IV reversal; one rat of the deficient-choline group could not learn the new operant schedule since the first reversal and continued to respond on the same lever during the whole of the test.