Longitudinal association between different indices of behavioral inhibition

Longitudinal association between different indices of behavioral inhibition This repository contains behavioral data for testing whether behavioral indices covary across time both spontaneously and upon perturbation. ## Behavioral task Sessions consisted of two sequential components run within a single Med-PC program. Phase 1: Pavlovian Conditioned Inhibition (PCI)32 trials of two types were presented in pseudorandom order. On A+ trials, an 8-second white noise stimulus was followed by automatic food delivery. On AX- trials, the same auditory stimulus was presented simultaneously with a 2 Hz flickering light for 8 seconds with no food delivery. Inter-trial intervals were drawn from a variable schedule with a mean of 192 seconds. Component 2: Differential Reinforcement of Low Rates (DRL)Initiated automatically after 32 PCI trials. The left lever was active throughout. Food was delivered only if the animal waited at least 10 seconds between consecutive lever presses; premature responses reset the timer. This component ended after 20 minutes of its onset. Data structure Data are organized in session folders named `INH S[session number]`. Each session folder contains two subfolders named `INH S[session number] T[batch number]`, corresponding to successive experimental batches. Each subfolder contains eight `.txt` files, one per rat, named `R[rat number]_inh_s[session number].txt`. Output file format Files follow the standard Med-PC text output format. Each file contains a header with session metadata (date, subject, experiment, group, box, start time, end time) followed by labeled arrays. Key arrays for analysis are: J: General cumulative event log. Each event is recorded as a timestamp in hundredths of a second plus a decimal code identifying the event type:- `.1` — food cup entry- `.11` — food cup exit- `.2` — food delivery- `.23` — A+ trial onset- `.24` — AX- trial onset- `.3` — A+ trial offset- `.4` — AX- trial offset- `.531` — DRL component onset- `.307` — lever press- `.310` — lever press during post-reinforcement period- `.218` — reinforcer delivery (DRL)- `.987` — pre-CS period onset- `.998` — PCI-to-DRL transition- `.999` — session start- `.714` — session end Experimental manipulation We introduced a prefeeding perturbation to assess whether behavioral inhibition indices moved in the same direction. We did so using a multiple baseline design. Across the first 44 training sessions, rats were food deprived for 23 hours and received 1 hour of feeding time after completing the behavioral tasks. In session 45, the post-session feeding condition was replaced by one hour of prefeeding for rats with odd ID numbers. In session 49, feeding conditions returned to baseline for odd-ID rats and prefeeding was introduced for even-ID rats. In session 53, conditions returned to the baseline deprivation regime for even-ID rats. Notes Sessions were conducted daily without interruption, except between sessions 34 and 35, when the researcher in charge fell seriously ill and a one-day gap occurred. This disruption affected performance; sessions 35 and 36 should be excluded from analysis. In session 35, rat 7 was placed in the box assigned to rat 8 and vice versa. Their performance does not appear to have been disrupted. For questions about the methodology, contact the corresponding author.