Classical conditioning enhances auditory 2-deoxyglucose patterns in the inferior colliculus.
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.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology; D001345:Autoradiography; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D003837:Deoxy Sugars / Q000378:metabolism*; D003847:Deoxyglucose / Q000378:metabolism*; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D007245:Inferior Colliculi / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D008636:Mesencephalon; D051381:Rats; D012154:Reticular Formation / Q000502:physiology*
D003837:Deoxy Sugars; D003847:Deoxyglucose