title: Infusions of muscimol into the lateral septum do not reduce rats' defensive behaviors toward a cat odor stimulus.
abstract: The lateral septum (LS) is implicated in behavioral defense. We tested whether bilateral infusions of the GABAA receptor agonist muscimol into the LS suppress rats' defensive responses to cat odor. Rats received intra-LS infusions of either saline or muscimol (40 ng/rat) and were exposed to either a piece of a cat collar that had been previously worn by a cat or to a control (cat odor free) collar. Rats exposed to the cat odor collar displayed more head-out postures, while intra-LS application of muscimol reduced the number of head-out postures. However, this reduction was also present in rats exposed to a control (cat odor free) collar. This latter finding suggests that despite its involvement in other defensive behaviors (e.g., open arm avoidance in the elevated plus maze), the LS does not selectively regulate rats' receptor defensive responding to the olfactory cues present in our cat odor stimulus.
authors.affiliation: Center for Neuroscience Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: San-San A
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Chee
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Ronak
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.affiliation: Center for Neuroscience Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: menard@queensu.ca.
authors.forename: Janet L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Menard
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D002415:Cats; D003463:Cues; D004924:Escape Reaction / Q000187:drug effects*; D058785:GABA-A Receptor Agonists / Q000494:pharmacology*; D057967:Infusions, Intraventricular; D008124:Locomotion / Q000187:drug effects; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D009118:Muscimol / Q000494:pharmacology*; D009812:Odorants; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D020665:Septum of Brain / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D012903:Smell
chemical_list: D058785:GABA-A Receptor Agonists; D009118:Muscimol
keywords: Cat odor; Lateral septum; Muscimol; Plus-maze; Rat