The role of the amygdala and rostral anterior cingulate in encoding expected outcomes during learning.
Successful passive avoidance learning is thought to require the use of learned stimulus-reinforcement associations to guide decision making [Baxter, M.G., Murray, E.A., 2002. The amygdala and reward. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience 3, 563-573]. The current experiment investigated the neural correlates of successful passive avoidance learning in 19 healthy adults. Behaviorally, subjects showed a distinct pattern of performance: early indiscriminate responding to stimuli (pre-criterion performance), followed by relatively rapid learning before a plateau of successful performance (post-criterion performance). Neural responses to post-criterion correct responses were compared with neural responses to both incorrect responses and pre-criterion correct responses. Post-criterion correct responding was associated with increased activation in regions including rostral anterior cingulate, insula, caudate, hippocampal regions, and the amygdala.
Kosson
D S
DS
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, IL 60064, USA.
Budhani
S
S
Nakic
M
M
Chen
G
G
Saad
Z S
ZS
Vythilingam
M
M
Pine
D S
DS
Blair
R J R
RJ
D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D017352:Echo-Planar Imaging; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood*; D012691:Serial Learning / Q000502:physiology; D012718:Set, Psychology
D010100:Oxygen