Role of the anterior cingulate cortex in the control over behavior by Pavlovian conditioned stimuli in rats.
To investigate the contribution of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to stimulus-reward learning, rats with lesions of peri- and postgenual ACC were tested on a variety of Pavlovian conditioning tasks. Lesioned rats learned to approach a food alcove during a stimulus predicting food, and responded normally for conditioned reinforcement. They also exhibited normal conditioned freezing and Pavlovian-instrumental transfer, yet were impaired at autoshaping. To resolve this apparent discrepancy, a further task was developed in which approach to the food alcove was under the control of 2 stimuli, only 1 of which was followed by reward. Lesioned rats were impaired, approaching during both stimuli. It is suggested that the ACC is not critical for stimulus-reward learning per se, but is required to discriminate multiple stimuli on the basis of their association with reward.
Cardinal
Rudolf N
RN
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, United Kingdom. Rudolf.Cardinal@pobox.com
Parkinson
John A
JA
Marbini
Hosnieh Djafari
HD
Toner
Andrew J
AJ
Bussey
Timothy J
TJ
Robbins
Trevor W
TW
Everitt
Barry J
BJ
D000661:Amphetamine / Q000494:pharmacology; D000818:Animals; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012201:Reward
D000661:Amphetamine