Cognitive flexibility of male rats is increased by augmented punishment in a reversal learning task but ketamine has no detectable long-term effects.
Psychopharmacology April 22, 2025 Anthony N Nist, Stephen J Walsh, Timothy A Shahan
Adding electric footshock punishment to the probabilistic reversal learning task increased behavioral persistence and cognitive flexibility in rats, but a single dose of ketamine had no effect beyond causing acute impairments. The experiment used 40 rats and compared those receiving footshock for non-rewarded trials with those receiving only timeout periods. The findings suggest that punishment conditions significantly affect task performance and support previous evidence that ketamine may not influence cognitive flexibility or reward processing in healthy rats.