Active Avoidance in BALB/c Mice Through Pavlovian Conditioning Without Negative Reinforcement

Abstract

Active avoidance behavior has been defined as a response through which organisms learn to avoid aversive stimuli by performing an initial motor action. Traditionally, this behavior has been studied primarily from the perspective of instrumental conditioning as the central mechanism, receiving little attention from the standpoint of Pavlovian fear conditioning. In this context, this study aimed to determine whether Pavlovian conditioning alone can generate active avoidance responses. A simple factorial design was used with 21 BALB/c mice, divided into a control group, an instrumental group, and a Pavlovian group. Data were analyzed using non-parametric group comparison tests (Kruskal-Wallis), Dunn’s post hoc test for specific differences, and Spearman correlations between avoidance frequency and latency. Results showed a statistically significant difference among the three groups (p < .05). Specifically, Pavlovian conditioning did elicit avoidance behavior, albeit to a lesser extent, and did not differ statistically from instrumental conditioning (z ≈ 1.37, p = .172, r = .57). Moreover, avoidance frequency was highly correlated with latency, r (19) = -0.91, p < .001. These findings contribute theoretically to the understanding of Pavlovian avoidance behavior and the development of new procedures for treating behaviors associated with avoidance.