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The manifestation of "learned helplessness" in rats with various capacities for active avoidance
1Laboratory of the Physiology and Pathology of the Endocrine System, I.P. Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Saint Petersburg.
Abstract:
A riddance deficit in the shuttle chamber after unavoidable and avoidable stressor influences has been recorded in rats of two lines that differ in the capacity to form active avoidance: the KHA line-rats with a high rate of learning, and KLA-rats which learn poorly. Unavoidable stress leads to a riddance deficit only in KHA rats, whereas avoidable stress forms it only in KLA rats. It is hypothesized that "learned helplessness" represents a pathology of adaptive behavior, if unavoidable stress is applied to KHA rats, while in KLA rats., it is one of the forms of adaptive behavior as a result of avoidable stress.