Sensory and associative effects of LSD in classical conditioning of rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) nictitating membrane response.
Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology January 1, 1980 I. Gormezano, John A. Harvey 29 citations
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) at a dose of 30 nmol/kg enhances the acquisition of classically conditioned nictitating membrane responses in rabbits. Three experiments showed that LSD specifically improves learning, not performance, by increasing the frequency of conditioned responses and lowering the threshold for the conditioned stimulus intensity. LSD did not alter unconditioned response amplitude or the sensory processing of the unconditioned stimulus. The drug's enhancement of conditioned stimulus sensory processing is proposed to facilitate conditioning through both learning and performance mechanisms.