Spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) readily learn to vary but not repeat instrumental responses

When spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wystar-Kyoto normotensive control rats (WKY) were rewarded in a 12-arm radial maze (Experiment 1), the SHRs varied their arm choices more, making fewer repetition errors than the WKYs. Similarly when rewards depended on variable sequences of responses on two levers in an operant chamber (Experiment 2), SHRs' sequences were more variable than those of WKYs. A requirement for response variability was then combined with a requirement to repeat selected responses in the radial maze (Experiment 3) and operant chamber (Experiment 4). WKYs learned to repeat more readily than the SHRs, whereas SHRs varied more readily. Thus, when subjects had to repeat responses, SHRs were at a disadvantage, but when variability was adaptive, SHRs excelled. The high variability of SHRs, together with their difficulty in learning to repeat, may have parallels in children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH).