Amygdala central nucleus lesions disrupt increments, but not decrements, in conditioned stimulus processing.
The effects of neurotoxic lesions of the amygdala central nucleus (CN) on changes in the associability of a conditioned stimulus (CS) in appetitive Pavlovian conditioning were examined in 2 experiments with rats. In Experiment 1, CN lesions had no effect on the reduction in the associability of a CS produced by preexposure to that cue (latent inhibition). In Experiment 2, CN lesions prevented the enhancement of the associability of a CS that is normally observed when an inconsistent predictive relation is arranged between that CS and another cue. The results support previous claims that the amygdala CN is involved in broad-based incremental, but not decremental, changes in the processing of CSs in Pavlovian conditioning.
Holland
P C
PC
Department of Psychology, Experimental, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27706.
Gallagher
M
M
D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats