Improvement of poor operant performance by continual intake of phenobarbital in spontaneously epileptic rats

Spontaneously epileptic rats (SER) are a double mutant (zi/zi, tm/tm) obtained by mating the tremor rats with another tremulous mutant, zitter rats, and spontaneously exhibit absence-like seizures, tonic convulsions and wild jumping or running episodes. In addition, SER exhibit retardation in learning ability under differential reinforcement at a low rate (DRL)-5 sec schedule of food reinforcement in operant behavior at 14 to 15 weeks of age. We examined the long-term effects of phenobarbital (PB) on total bar presses, reinforcements and inter-response time distribution to assess whether the poorness of learning ability in SER can be ascribed to frequent occurrence of seizures. Food pellets containing 0.1% PB were given ad libitum to male SER from 7 weeks, and operant behavior was examined at 13 to 14 weeks of age. Tonic seizures and wild jumping or running episode were inhibited effectively and poor operant performance was significantly improved by continual intake of PB in SER.