title: Auditory cue absence as a conditioned stimulus for delay eyeblink conditioning.
abstract: The present experiment was designed to determine if the absence of an auditory cue (i.e., a "tone-off" cue) would be an effective conditioned stimulus (CS) for delay eyeblink conditioning and to test if the medial geniculate nucleus (MGN) is part of the sensory pathway for tone-off conditioning. Rats were given paired or unpaired delay eyeblink conditioning to examine if responding to a tone-off CS was due to an associative process. An inactivation technique was performed on a separate group of rats to determine if the MGN is needed to express tone-off conditioning. The results showed that rats given paired conditioning acquired robust conditioned eyeblink responses (CRs) compared with rats given unpaired conditioning and that expression of tone-off elicited CRs was impaired when the MGN was inactivated. The findings suggest that tone-on and tone-off eyeblink conditioning may share a common neural pathway. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Christopher Newport University.
authors.forename: Matthew M
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2396-8068
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Campolattaro
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Christopher Newport University.
authors.forename: Sean W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Savage
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Christopher Newport University.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Lipatova
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D003215:Conditioning, Eyelid / Q000187:drug effects; D003463:Cues; D058785:GABA-A Receptor Agonists / Q000008:administration & dosage; D005829:Geniculate Bodies / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009118:Muscimol / Q000008:administration & dosage; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans
chemical_list: D058785:GABA-A Receptor Agonists; D009118:Muscimol