Figure 2. Relapse to alcohol seeking when rats returned to the original training context after response-contingent punishment in an alternative context.
(A) Mean±SEM reinforced active lever-presses during the final self-administration session in the initial training context (context A) and all self-administration sessions in the punishment context (context B). The numbers within the symbol represent n per group for each session. After the 3rd session, rats in group Punished with more than 20 active lever-presses in the 2-h session were given additional sessions with increased shock intensity; rats from the other groups were given additional sessions to match this. (B) Mean±SEM non-reinforced active lever-lever-presspresses during the relapse tests in context B (left panel) and context A (right panel). Lever-presses of the Punished rats (n=15) were higher in context A than in context B. Context switch had no effect on non-reinforced responding in the Unpunished (n=11) and Non-contingent Shock (n=8) groups. (C) The top panel shows active lever-presses during testing in each context for individual rats in group Punished. The bottom panel shows correlation plots of active lever-presses during testing as a function of the number of context B punishment sessions. * Different from the other experimental conditions, p<0.05.