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Normal aging in rats affects behavioral performance on a variety of associative learning tasks under Pavlovian conditions. There is little information, however, on whether aging also impacts performance of instrumental tasks. Young (9–12 months) and aged (24–27 months) Fisher 344 rats were trained to press distinct levers associated with either maltodextrin or sucrose. The rats in both age groups increased their lever press frequency at a similar rate, suggesting that the initial acquisition of this instrumental task is not affected by aging. Using a contingency degradation procedure, we then addressed whether aged rats could adapt their behavior to changes in action-outcome contingencies. We found that young and aged rats do adapt, but that a different schedule of reinforcement is necessary to optimize performance in each age group. Finally, we also addressed whether aged rats can extinguish a lever press …