title: The roles of the nucleus accumbens core, dorsomedial striatum, and dorsolateral striatum in learning: performance and extinction of Pavlovian fear-conditioned responses and instrumental avoidance responses.
abstract: This study examined the effects of bilateral excitotoxic lesions of the nucleus accumbens core (NAc-co), dorsomedial striatum (DMS) or dorsolateral striatum (DLS) of rats on the learning and extinction of Pavlovian and instrumental components of conditioned avoidance responses (CARs). None of the lesions caused sensorimotor deficits that could affect locomotion. Lesions of the NAc-co, but not DMS or DLS, decreased unconditioned and conditioned freezing. The NAc-co and DLS lesioned rats learned the 2-way active avoidance task more slowly. These results suggest: (i) CARs depend on both Pavlovian and instrumental learning; (ii) learning the Pavlovian component of CARs depends on the NAc-co; learning the instrumental component of CARs depends on the DLS, NAc and DMS; (iii) although the NAc-co is also needed for learning the instrumental component, it is not clear whether it plays a role in learning the instrumental component per se or if it simply allows learning of the Pavlovian component which is a pre-condition for learning the instrumental component; (iv) we did not find evidence that the DMS and DLS play the same roles in habit and goal-directed aspects of the instrumental component of CARs as observed in appetitive motivated instrumental responding.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Paraná, Departamento de Farmacologia, 81.530-350 Curitiba, PR, Brazil.
authors.forename: Etieli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wendler
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Paraná, Departamento de Farmacologia, 81.530-350 Curitiba, PR, Brazil.
authors.forename: Jessica C C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Gaspar
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do ABC, Centro de Matemática, Computação e Cognição, 09.210-170 Santo Andre, SP, Brazil.
authors.forename: Tatiana L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Paraná, Departamento de Farmacologia, 81.530-350 Curitiba, PR, Brazil.
authors.forename: Janaína K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Barbiero
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Paraná, Departamento de Farmacologia, 81.530-350 Curitiba, PR, Brazil.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Andreatini
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Paraná, Departamento de Farmacologia, 81.530-350 Curitiba, PR, Brazil.
authors.forename: Maria A B F
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Vital
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA.
authors.forename: Charles D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Blaha
authors.affiliation: Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy & Biomedical Sciences, University of Strathclyde, 161 Cathedral Street, Glasgow G4 0RE, UK.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Winn
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal do Paraná, Departamento de Farmacologia, 81.530-350 Curitiba, PR, Brazil; Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA. Electronic address: dacunha.claudio@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Da Cunha
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000502:physiology*; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009714:Nucleus Accumbens / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar
keywords: Caudate–putamen; Conditioned avoidance responses; Neostriatum; Pavlovian fear conditioning; Procedural memory; Ventral striatum