Olds and Milner’s rats  

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Rats will perform lever-pressing at rates of several thousand responses per hour for days in order to obtain direct electrical stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus. Multiple studies have demonstrated that rats will perform reinforced behaviors at the exclusion of all other behaviors. Experiments have shown rats to forgo food to the point of starvation in order to work for brain stimulation or intravenous cocaine when both food and stimulation are offered concurrently for a limited time each day. Rats will even cross electrified grids to press a lever, and they are willing to withstand higher levels of shock to obtain electrical stimulation than to obtain food.[1]

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Olds and Milner’s rats refers to an animal experiment conducted by James Olds and Peter Milner of which the results were published in "Positive Reinforcement Produced by Electrical Stimulation of the Septal Area and Other Regions of the Rat Brain".

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