What does DRL (differential reinforcement of low rate schedule) mean?

Question

I'm readying a study about cocaine administration in rats and it says the study used an assess method called DRL 45s (differential reinforcement of low rate schedule). It says that it results in low rates of responding, as only those responses that occur after a minimum time interval (45s) following a previous response are reinforced. I didn't understood this part of the article. Could someone help me?

Answer 1

My goodness, its information is scattered all over the internet.

I ran across this for you, its quite interesting, I think its the best.

The bottom bit explains its relations, but this is the finest description.

"The influence of differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedules on the subsequent fixed-interval food-reinforced lever-pressing of rats was investigated. Three groups of rats were initially exposed for 30 sessions to differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedules prior to 80 sessions of a fixed-interval 30-s schedule. Compared to a schedule-naive group of rats, subjects exposed to differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate 10-s, 30-s, or 60-s schedules showed longer postreinforcer pauses and longer interresponse times. The effects of differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate history were statistically evident in the first 2 10-session blocks for the rats trained with 10-s or 30-s parameters. ..."