Female rats that rapidly acquire a d-amphetamine discrimination generalize more to d-amphetamine

Female Long-Evans rats were trained to discriminate d-amphetamine (0.8 mg/kg) vs. saline in a food-reinforced two-lever operant task. Fifteen rats (fast group) acquired the discrimination rapidly, achieving criterion (eight correct choices within ten sessions) during the first 10 sessions (mean sessions to criterion = 10.0). The remaining eight rats (slow group) made at least three errors during the first 10 sessions and required additional drug discrimination training to achieve criterion (mean sessions to criterion = 15.9). When a rat had completed a minimum of 30 two-lever discrimination training sessions and, in addition, provided 10 correct choices within 10 sessions, generalization testing with lower doses of d-amphetamine was initiated. The fast group made more d-amphetamine-appropriate choices during the generalization test and generalized more to the 0.2 mg/kg d-amphetamine test dose than did the slow group, though the number of training sessions prior to generalization testing was comparable across groups. Results suggest that when the training drug is easily discriminated, fast learners generalize more, even when groups receive comparable amounts of training prior to generalization testing, and this effect is observed in female rats.