Classical conditioning of eyelid and mystacial vibrissae responses in conscious mice.
The murine vibrissae sensorimotor system has been scrutinized as a target of motor learning through trace classical conditioning. Conditioned eyelid responses were acquired by using weak electrical whisker-pad stimulation as conditioned stimulus (CS) and strong electrical periorbital stimulation as unconditioned stimulus (US). In addition, conditioned vibrissal protraction was obtained pairing either weak electrical whisker-pad stimulation or a tone as CS, with a strong electric shock delivered in the whisker-pad as US. This finding suggests that evolutionary pressure has selected a sensorimotor system capable of constructing conditioned responses on the basis of temporal relationships of stimuli, independently of any putative functional purpose.
Troncoso
Julieta
J
División de Neurociencias, Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla, 41013-Sevilla, Spain.
Múnera
Alejandro
A
Delgado-García
José María
JM
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning; D001767:Blinking / Q000502:physiology; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D003215:Conditioning, Eyelid; D003463:Cues; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D051379:Mice; D009068:Movement; D014738:Vibrissae