Research data supporting "Compulsive Coping Behavior, Developed Predominantly by Sign-Trackers, Is Exacerbated by Chronic Atomoxetine"

This dataset contains the full set of behavioural and molecular data generated from two longitudinal studies in male Sprague-Dawley rats designed to investigate mechanisms underlying compulsive coping behaviours. Data were collected using the schedule-induced polydipsia (SIP) procedure, a well-established paradigm where rats develop individual differences in drinking behaviour under intermittent food reinforcement. Experiment 1 investigated whether individual differences in sign-tracking predicted the development of hyperdipsia, and whether sign-tracking or SIP were amenabl to acute noradrenergic pharmacological manpulation. Experiment 2 examined whether established hyperdipsia could be altered by chronic administration of the noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor atomoxetine,combining behavioural measures with molecular assays of striatal and amygdalar gene expression to assess brain circuits recruited during compulsive coping and its exacerbation by atomoxetine. Behavioural data include individual trajectories of SIP acquisition (grams drank per daily 30-minute session; nosepokes made into the food magazine), autoshaping behaviour for experiment 1 (lever contacts and magazine entries made during the CS presentation), and drinking group (determined via quartile split of the average water consumption across the last three days of SIP) and autoshaping group (sign-tracker, intermediate, or goal-tracker, determined via k-means clustering of CS lever presses and CS magazine entries). Molecular data were generated from brain tissue collected after experimental manipulations. These include quantitative PCR (qPCR) measures of immediate-early gene expression (c-fos, zif268) in across multiple compulsion-relevant striatolimbic brain regions, as well as a deailed transcriptomic profiles of catecholamine target genes within the nucleus accumbens shell. All molecular assays were conducted following standard RNA extraction, quality control, and normalization procedures. qPCR data are presented as the mean relative expression values across at least two duplicate assays. Data are organised by experimental cohort and include raw (ex. water drank) and processed (ex. relative gene expression; drinking group) variables to facilitate reuse. The dataset is accompanies the manuscript entitled "Compulsive Coping Behavior, Developed Predominantly by Sign-Trackers, Is Exacerbated by Chronic Atomoxetine" accepted for publication in Biological Psychiatry as of 15/07/2025. Please see manuscript for all details of experimental methods and findings. Together, these data provide an integrated resource linking individual behavioural phenotypes with molecular adaptations in corticostriatal and amygdalar circuits, enabling future analyses of compulsive coping and its modulation by noradrenergic signaling.