title: The effects of dorsal bundle lesions on serial and trace conditioning.
abstract: The performance of rats with neurotoxic lesions of the dorsal ascending noradrenergic bundle (DB) was compared with that of sham-operated control animals under two behavioural conditions. Animals with DB lesions were slower than controls to acquire a classically-conditioned emotional response (conditioned suppression) with a trace interval interposed between the clicker conditioned stimulus (CS) and the shock reinforcer. However, if the latter half of the trace interval was filled by a second stimulus, a light, the DB-lesioned animals acquired conditioned suppression to the clicker faster than did controls under the same conditions. These results are discussed in terms of the attentional theory of DB function.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D004597:Electroshock; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D007031:Hypothalamus / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009638:Norepinephrine / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012055:Reinforcement Schedule
chemical_list: D009638:Norepinephrine