The relationship between electrodermal and digital vasomotor responses in aversive classical conditioning.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
SEARCH · PubMed Health
Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The [14C]2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) method in conjunction with a heart rate conditioning paradigm was used to investigate whether associative pavlovian conditioning of an acoustic stimulus (CS) with an aversive reticular stimulus (US) would result in a learning-induced metabolic response within the rat inferior colliculus (IC). The data show that: (1) the arousal level of the animal can result in a sensitization of the IC to subsequent auditory stimuli, and (2) the overlapping area of spatial representation of US and CS within the IC selectively develops an enhanced metabolic response during training and as a result of learning. Our results support the conclusion that within the same neuronal space of the IC there is representation not only of the physical parameters of a stimulus but also of its learned behavioral significance.
Upper eyelid movements were conditioned in the alert cat to the presentation of either tones or short, weak air puffs applied to the ipsi- or contralateral cornea followed by an unconditioned stimulus consisting of a long, strong air puff applied to the ipsilateral cornea. Eyelid movements were measured with the search-coil technique. Electromyographs of the orbicularis oculi muscle were also recorded. Quantitative analysis of the latencies and topographic profiles of eyelid conditioned responses suggests that the primary site for their initiation is the brain stem reflex circuit involved, depending on the sensory modality of and on the side where the conditioning stimulus was applied. However, the kinematic of the conditioned response indicates that other neural structures are involved in its acquisition and consolidation.
Rats with extensive unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine lesions of substantia nigra rotate (turn in circles) in response to administration of dopamine agonists. Here apomorphine administration, but not single or repeated administrations of ethanol, resulted in rotation in such lesioned animals. When apomorphine and ethanol were administered simultaneously to lesioned animals, rapid contralateral rotation resulted. After five of these conditioning trials in which ethanol and apomorphine were paired, ethanol alone elicited apomorphine-like rotation. Saline administration did not result in rotation in the conditioned animals, indicating that ethanol rather than the injection procedure exerted stimulus control over the behavior. Control animals which were treated five times with apomorphine and ethanol in an unpaired manner showed no conditioned rotation to ethanol.
Cognitive processes have been increasingly implicated in Pavlovian conditioning. Research in the past year has focused on questions of stimulus selection and the internal representation of events and the relations between them. Recent data support negative feedback models of selection that assume conditioning-dependent changes in processing of conditioned and unconditioned stimulus events, and suggest potential neural mechanisms that may underlie these processes. New models of conditioning propose a more detailed representation of individual conditioning episodes than traditionally assumed. The results of investigations into conditional discrimination learning imply a hierarchical organization of event representations, and illustrate the importance of conditioned modulatory processes as distinct from response elicitation.
Formation of normal olfactory memory requires the expression of the wild-type amnesiac gene in the dorsal paired medial (DPM) neurons. Imaging the activity in the processes of DPM neurons revealed that the neurons respond when the fly is stimulated with electric shock or with any odor that was tested. Pairing odor and electric-shock stimulation increases odor-evoked calcium signals and synaptic release from DPM neurons. These memory traces form in only one of the two branches of the DPM neuron process. Moreover, trace formation requires the expression of the wild-type amnesiac gene in the DPM neurons. The cellular memory traces first appear at 30 min after conditioning and persist for at least 1 hr, a time window during which DPM neuron synaptic transmission is required for normal memory. DPM neurons are therefore "odor generalists" and form a delayed, branch-specific, and amnesiac-dependent memory trace that may guide behavior after acquisition.
Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we determined the time course of sensory-evoked modulations during differential aversive conditioning to faces, with an aversive noise event (UCS). Conditioning was associated with the development of a differential event-related waveform peaking at approximately 150 ms. Source analysis indicated the localization of this modulation to ventral occipital regions. In the auditory domain, a modulation of auditory-evoked responses to a probe sound was evident in a late component emerging at approximately 180 ms over sensors in fronto-temporal regions. The findings indicate the time course in processing sensory stimuli can be altered on the basis of their acquired value.
Pavlovian conditioning of the nudibranch mollusc Hermissenda crassicornis was previously shown to produce long-lasting reduction of two K+ currents measured across the Type B photoreceptor soma membrane (Alkon et al., 1982a; Alkon et al., 1985). Pavlovian conditioning of the rabbit was also shown to be followed by persistent K+ current reduction (Disterhoft et al., 1986). Here we report the first evidence that Ca2+ currents can also be modified by conditioning. The amplitude of the currents rather than their voltage-dependence remains reduced at least 1-2 d after conditioning (but not control procedures). Conditioning-induced changes of both K+ and Ca2+ currents increased as a function of training, the Ca2+ currents only changing substantially with greater than or equal to 250 trials. The later changes of the Ca2+ current may function to limit the magnitude of excitability increases due to associative learning.
Accumulating evidence suggests that dopamine (DA) neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) contribute to the complex amygdala-based neurocircuitry that mediates fear-motivated behaviors. Because of acetylcholine's (ACh) role in DA neuronal activation, the involvement of VTA cholinergic muscarinic receptors in Pavlovian conditioned fear responding was evaluated in the present study. Fear-potentiated startle was used to assess the effects of intraVTA infused methylscopolamine on conditioned fear performance in laboratory rats. Application of this nonspecific muscarinic receptor antagonist to VTA neurons was observed to inhibit the ability of a conditioned stimulus (CS) previously paired with footshock to enhance the amplitude of the acoustic startle reflex. Doses of methylscopolamine that blocked conditioned fear expression did not alter baseline sensorimotor responding. These results identify ACh neurotransmission in the VTA as a potential excitatory mechanism underlying the fear-arousing properties of threatening environmental stimuli.
Rabbits acquire conditioned responses (CRs) normally with bilateral removal of the hippocampus, but alterations of the intact hippocampus can affect the rate of acquisition. The cognition-enhancing drug, nefiracetam ameliorated the acquisition of CRs in older rabbits, protected membrane dysfunction in hippocampal CA1 neurons following oxygen and glucose deprivation, and promoted the release of diverse neurotransmitters, including acetylcholine. Because the septo-hippocampal cholinergic system is demonstrated to be involved in eyeblink conditioning, this experiment was undertaken to explore whether nefiracetam ameliorates conditioning via the hippocampus. Data from 53 rabbits of a mean age of 28 months were tested under two drug conditions (10 or 0 mg/kg nefiracetam) and 4 lesion conditions (bilateral hippocampectomy, bilateral neocortical removal, sham surgery, no surgery). The three groups of nefiracetam-treated rabbits with intact hippocampus acquired CRs more rapidly than the vehicle-treated groups, but rabbits with bilateral hippocampectomy treated with nefiracetam learned like vehicle-treated rabbits. Results suggest that nefiracetam ameliorates learning via the hippocampus. Because of the parallels between conditioning in rabbits with disrupted hippocampal cholinergic systems and conditioning in Alzheimer's disease (AD), these results suggest that nefiracetam may ameliorate conditioning in AD as it ameliorates conditioning in older rabbits.
Single-unit neuronal activity was recorded from the cerebellar interpositus nucleus and lateral pontine nuclei during conditioned inhibition of the eyeblink response in rats. Conditioned inhibition training sessions included 100 trials/day for 12 days. During each training session, the rats were given 50 presentations of a tone conditioned stimulus (CS) that was paired with a brief periocular shock unconditioned stimulus (US). They were also given 50 presentations of a compound stimulus that included the tone-CS and a light-CS. The compound-CS was not paired with the US. The two types of trials were mixed throughout the session and presented in an irregular sequence. This training procedure resulted in significant inhibition of the eyeblink response during the compound-CS. Neurons in the interpositus and lateral pontine nuclei exhibited significantly less activity during the compound-CS relative to the tone-CS. The suppression of cerebellar and pontine learning-related neuronal activity during the inhibitory CS may be critical for inhibiting the conditioned eyeblink response.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.