Posttraining intracranial self-stimulation ameliorates the detrimental effects of parafascicular thalamic lesions on active avoidance in young and aged rats.
To evaluate whether intracranial self-stimulation (SS) ameliorates conditioning deficits induced by parafascicular nucleus (PF) damage in young and aged rats, the authors gave rats a daily session of 2-way active avoidance until a fixed criterion was achieved. Four experimental groups were established in both young and aged rats: SS treatment after every conditioning session (SS groups), pretraining PF lesions (lesion groups), PF lesions and SS treatment (L + SS groups), and controls. SS treatment not only canceled the detrimental effects of PF lesions, but also improved conditioning in lesioned rats (L + SS groups). This effect was more powerful in aged rats. SS treatment compensated for memory deficits generated by hypofunctionality of arousal systems such as that involving the PF.
Redolar-Ripoll
Diego
D
Institut de Neurosiènces, Unitat de Psicobiologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
Soriano-Mas
Carles
C
Guillazo-Blanch
Gemma
G
Aldavert-Vera
Laura
L
Segura-Torres
Pilar
P
Morgado-Bernal
Ignacio
I
D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D020646:Intralaminar Thalamic Nuclei / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D012653:Self Stimulation / Q000502:physiology*