The effects of early handling on latent inhibition in male and female rats

Abstract

Latent inhibition (LI) is a behavioral paradigm in which repeated exposure to stimuli not followed by meaningful consequences renders these stimuli ineffective for subsequent learning. The development of LI is considered to reflect learning not to attend to, ignore, or tune out irrelevant stimuli. The present study investigated the differences in the development of LI between handled and nonhandled males and females. Infantile handled (Days 1–22) and nonhandled, male and female Wistar rats were tested in maturity in the LI paradigm. The LI procedure consisted of two stages: pre‐exposure, where animals received 60 presentations of the to‐be‐conditioned stimulus (tone) and test, where the animals acquired a two‐way active avoidance response with the tone serving as the warning signal. Handled animals reached higher percentage of avoidance responses as compared with nonhandled animals. Latent inhibition was obtained in both the handled and the nonhandled females, but only the handled males showed the LI effect. Nonhandled males failed to develop LI. The results indicate that (a) the effects of handling are evident in learning tasks that do not involve motivational‐emotional variables, i.e., learning to ignore irrelevant stimuli; (b) handling differentially affects males and females, with a much greater impact on males and (c) the nonhandling procedure has significant deleterious consequences on adult behavior.