title: Effects of posttraining damage to the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus on conditioned stimulus transfer in two-way active avoidance in rats.
abstract: The effects of posttraining excitotoxic lesions of the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTg) on two-way active avoidance after changing the conditioned stimulus (CS) used during prelesion training were examined. Prelesion training was carried out with either a tone or a light as the CS, and this CS was changed during postlesion training. Replacing the tone with a light reduced the performance of control and lesioned rats, but the degree of reduction was higher in the latter. Replacing the light with a tone had slight detrimental effects in lesioned rats but not in controls. Thus, posttraining PPTg lesions slowed down the reacquisition of shuttle-box avoidance under conditions of CS transfer, an effect that may be attributable to disruption of attention and/or gating of sensory stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Institut de Neurociencies, Departament de Psicobiologia i de Metodologia de les Ciencies de la Salut, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Homs-Ormo
authors.forename: Meritxell
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Torras-Garcia
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Portell-Cortés
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Edo-Izquierdo
authors.forename: Ignacio
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Morgado-Bernal
authors.forename: Margalida
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Coll-Andreu
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001835:Body Weight / Q000502:physiology; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology; D006234:Handling, Psychological; D008297:Male; D045042:Pedunculopontine Tegmental Nucleus / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D013238:Stereotaxic Techniques