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The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Oct 2022Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have suggested that the primate amygdala plays an essential role in processing the emotional valence and intensity of visual...
Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have suggested that the primate amygdala plays an essential role in processing the emotional valence and intensity of visual stimuli, which is necessary for determining whether to approach or avoid a stimulus. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying the evaluation of emotional value remain unknown. In the present study, we trained male macaque monkeys to perform an operant conditioning task in which fractal visual patterns were associated with three different amounts of air puff delivered to the cheek (negative) or liquid reward (positive). After confirming that the monkeys successfully differentiated the emotional valence and intensity of the visual stimuli, we analyzed neuronal responses to the stimuli in the amygdala. Most amygdala neurons conveyed information concerning the emotional valence and/or intensity of the visual stimuli, and the majority of those conveying information about emotional valence responded optimally to negative stimuli. Further, some amygdala neurons conveyed information related to both emotional valence and intensity, whereas a small portion conveyed information related to emotional intensity alone. These results indicate that the primate amygdala encodes both emotional valence and intensity, highlighting its important role in the avoidance of dangerous stimuli and animal survival. Evaluating the emotional value of visual stimuli is essential for animal survival, especially in primates. Emotional value is estimated from the emotional valence and intensity of stimuli, and evidence indicates that the amygdala is likely to play a major role in processing these types of information. To our knowledge, the current study is the first to examine the responses of neurons in the monkey amygdala to visual stimuli that differ in emotional valence and intensity simultaneously. Our data suggest that the amygdala plays an important role in the evaluation of emotional stimuli and in the decision to escape negative and harmful stimuli.
Topics: Animals; Male; Haplorhini; Amygdala; Emotions; Conditioning, Operant; Neurons; Photic Stimulation
PubMed: 36658460
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0021-22.2022 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Nov 2013Dopamine and glutamate serve crucial functions in neural plasticity, learning and memory, and addiction. Contemporary theories contend that these two, widely-distributed... (Review)
Review
Dopamine and glutamate serve crucial functions in neural plasticity, learning and memory, and addiction. Contemporary theories contend that these two, widely-distributed neurotransmitter systems play an integrative role in motivational and associative information processing. Combined signaling of these systems, particularly through the dopamine (DA) D1 and glutamate (Glu) N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDAR), triggers critical intracellular signaling cascades that lead to changes in chromatin structure, gene expression, synaptic plasticity, and ultimately behavior. Addictive drugs also induce long-term neuroadaptations at the molecular and genomic levels causing structural changes that alter basic connectivity. Indeed, evidence that drugs of abuse engage D1- and NMDA-mediated neuronal cascades shared with normal reward learning provides one of the most important insights from contemporary studies on the neurobiology of addiction. Such drug-induced neuroadaptations likely contribute to abnormal information processing and behavior, resulting in the poor decision-making, loss of control, and compulsivity that characterize addiction. Such features are also common to many other neuropsychiatric disorders. Behavior problems, construed as difficulties associated with operant learning and behavior, present compelling challenges and unique opportunities for their treatment that require further study. The present review highlights the integrative work of Ann E. Kelley and colleagues, demonstrating a critical role not only for NMDAR, D1 receptors (D1R), and their associated signaling cascades, but also for other Glu receptors and protein synthesis in operant learning throughout a cortico-striatal-limbic network. Recent work has extended the impact of appetitive learning to epigenetic processes. A better understanding of these processes will likely assist in discovering therapeutics to engage neural plasticity-related processes and promote functional behavioral adaptations.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Addictive; Conditioning, Operant; Humans; Nerve Net; Neuronal Plasticity; Reward
PubMed: 23567518
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2013.03.019 -
Journal of Experimental Psychology.... Oct 2021Four experiments manipulated the context in which taste-aversion conditioning occurred when the reinforcer was devalued after instrumental learning. In all experiments,...
Four experiments manipulated the context in which taste-aversion conditioning occurred when the reinforcer was devalued after instrumental learning. In all experiments, rats learned to lever press in an operant conditioning chamber and then had an aversion to the food-pellet reinforcer conditioned by pairing it with lithium chloride (LiCl) in either that context or a different context. Lever pressing was then tested in extinction to assess its status as a goal-directed action. In Experiment 1, aversion conditioning in the operant conditioning chamber suppressed lever-pressing during the test, but aversion conditioning in the home cage did not. Exposure to the averted pellet in the operant conditioning chamber after conditioning in the home cage did not change this effect (Experiment 2). The same pattern was observed when the different context was a second operant-style chamber (counterbalanced), exposure to the contexts was controlled, and pellets were presented in them in the same manner (Experiment 3). The greater effect of aversion conditioning in the instrumental context was not merely due to potentiated contextual conditioning (Experiment 4). Importantly, consumption tests revealed that the aversion conditioned in the different context had transferred to the test context. Thus, when reinforcer devaluation occurred in a different context, the rats lever pressed in extinction for a reinforcer they would otherwise reject. The results suggest that animals encode contextual information about the reinforcer during instrumental learning and suggest caution in making inferences about action versus habit learning when the reinforcer is devalued in a different context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Animals; Conditioning, Classical; Conditioning, Operant; Extinction, Psychological; Learning; Rats; Taste
PubMed: 34516195
DOI: 10.1037/xan0000295 -
Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Apr 2018Operant behavior tasks are widely used in neuroscience research, but little is known about how variables such as housing and testing conditions affect rodent operant...
Operant behavior tasks are widely used in neuroscience research, but little is known about how variables such as housing and testing conditions affect rodent operant performance. We have previously observed differences in operant performance in male and female mice depending on whether mice were housed and tested in rooms containing only one sex versus rooms containing both sexes. Here, male and female mice in either single-sex or mixed sex housing rooms were trained on fixed ratio 1 (FR1) and progressive ratio (PR) tasks. For both sexes, animals in the mixed sex room had more accurate performance in FR1 and were more motivated in the PR task. We then moved the single sex housed animals to the mixed sex room and vice versa. Animals that started in mixed sex housing had no change to PR, but both sexes who started in single sex housing were more motivated after the switch. Additionally, the females that moved into single-sex housing performed less accurately in FR1. We conclude that housing and testing conditions can affect performance on FR1 and PR tasks. As these tasks are commonly used as training steps to more complex tasks, housing and testing conditions should be carefully considered during experiment design and reported in publications.
Topics: Animals; Attention; Conditioning, Operant; Female; Housing, Animal; Male; Mice; Motivation; Reinforcement Schedule; Sex Factors
PubMed: 29373847
DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2018.01.005 -
Journal of Neurophysiology Mar 2017Operant conditioning of neural activity has typically been performed under controlled behavioral conditions using food reinforcement. This has limited the duration and...
Operant conditioning of neural activity has typically been performed under controlled behavioral conditions using food reinforcement. This has limited the duration and behavioral context for neural conditioning. To reward cell activity in unconstrained primates, we sought sites in nucleus accumbens (NAc) whose stimulation reinforced operant responding. In three monkeys, NAc stimulation sustained performance of a manual target-tracking task, with response rates that increased monotonically with increasing NAc stimulation. We recorded activity of single motor cortex neurons and documented their modulation with wrist force. We conditioned increased firing rates with the monkey seated in the training booth and during free behavior in the cage using an autonomous head-fixed recording and stimulating system. Spikes occurring above baseline rates triggered single or multiple electrical pulses to the reinforcement site. Such rate-contingent, unit-triggered stimulation was made available for periods of 1-3 min separated by 3-10 min time-out periods. Feedback was presented as event-triggered clicks both in-cage and in-booth, and visual cues were provided in many in-booth sessions. In-booth conditioning produced increases in single neuron firing probability with intracranial reinforcement in 48 of 58 cells. Reinforced cell activity could rise more than five times that of non-reinforced activity. In-cage conditioning produced significant increases in 21 of 33 sessions. In-cage rate changes peaked later and lasted longer than in-booth changes, but were often comparatively smaller, between 13 and 18% above non-reinforced activity. Thus intracranial stimulation reinforced volitional increases in cortical firing rates during both free behavior and a controlled environment, although changes in the latter were more robust. Closed-loop brain-computer interfaces (BCI) were used to operantly condition increases in muscle and neural activity in monkeys by delivering activity-dependent stimuli to an intracranial reinforcement site (nucleus accumbens). We conditioned increased firing rates with the monkeys seated in a training booth and also, for the first time, during free behavior in a cage using an autonomous head-fixed BCI.
Topics: Action Potentials; Animals; Conditioning, Operant; Electric Stimulation; Electromyography; Macaca nemestrina; Male; Motor Cortex; Neurons; Nucleus Accumbens; Reinforcement, Psychology; Reward; Upper Extremity
PubMed: 28031396
DOI: 10.1152/jn.00423.2016 -
Learning & Memory (Cold Spring Harbor,... Jun 2017Sleep supports memory consolidation as shown in mammals and invertebrates such as bees and Here, we show that sleep's memory function is preserved in with an even...
Sleep supports memory consolidation as shown in mammals and invertebrates such as bees and Here, we show that sleep's memory function is preserved in with an even simpler nervous system. Animals performed on an inhibitory conditioning task ("learning that a food is inedible") three times, at Training, Retrieval 1, and Retrieval 2, with 17-h intervals between tests. Compared with Wake animals, remaining awake between Training and Retrieval 1, Sleep animals with undisturbed post-training sleep, performed significantly better at Retrieval 1 and 2. Control experiments testing retrieval only after ∼34 h, confirmed the consolidating effect of sleep occurring within 17 h after training.
Topics: Animals; Aplysia; Conditioning, Operant; Inhibition, Psychological; Memory; Sleep; Time Factors; Wakefulness
PubMed: 28507034
DOI: 10.1101/lm.045054.117 -
Scientific Reports Nov 2020Operant conditioning is implemented in brain-machine interfaces (BMI) to induce rapid volitional modulation of single neuron activity to control arbitrary mappings with...
Operant conditioning is implemented in brain-machine interfaces (BMI) to induce rapid volitional modulation of single neuron activity to control arbitrary mappings with an external actuator. However, intrinsic factors of the volitional controller (i.e. the brain) or the output stage (i.e. individual neurons) might hinder performance of BMIs with more complex mappings between hundreds of neurons and actuators with multiple degrees of freedom. Improved performance might be achieved by studying these intrinsic factors in the context of BMI control. In this study, we investigated how neuron subtypes respond and adapt to a given BMI task. We conditioned single cortical neurons in a BMI task. Recorded neurons were classified into bursting and non-bursting subtypes based on their spike-train autocorrelation. Both neuron subtypes had similar improvement in performance and change in average firing rate. However, in bursting neurons, the activity leading up to a reward increased progressively throughout conditioning, while the response of non-bursting neurons did not change during conditioning. These results highlight the need to characterize neuron-subtype-specific responses in a variety of tasks, which might ultimately inform the design and implementation of BMIs.
Topics: Action Potentials; Animals; Brain-Computer Interfaces; Conditioning, Operant; Male; Motor Cortex; Motor Neurons; Neurons, Efferent; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Reward; Volition
PubMed: 33203973
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-77090-2 -
PloS One 2013There have been several studies on the role of circadian clocks in the regulation of associative learning and memory processes in both vertebrate and invertebrate...
There have been several studies on the role of circadian clocks in the regulation of associative learning and memory processes in both vertebrate and invertebrate species. The results have been quite variable and at present it is unclear to what extent the variability observed reflects species differences or differences in methodology. Previous results have shown that following differential classical conditioning in the cockroach, Rhyparobia maderae, in an olfactory discrimination task, formation of the short-term and long-term memory is under strict circadian control. In contrast, there appeared to be no circadian regulation of the ability to recall established memories. In the present study, we show that following operant conditioning of the same species in a very similar olfactory discrimination task, there is no impact of the circadian system on either short-term or long-term memory formation. On the other hand, ability to recall established memories is strongly tied to the circadian phase of training. On the basis of these data and those previously reported for phylogenetically diverse species, it is suggested that there may be fundamental differences in the way the circadian system regulates learning and memory in classical and operant conditioning.
Topics: Animals; Circadian Rhythm; Cockroaches; Conditioning, Classical; Conditioning, Operant; Memory; Mental Recall
PubMed: 23533587
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058693 -
The Journal of Pharmacology and... Nov 2019Adenosine signaling is associated with ethanol-related behaviors. We previously found that adenosine A receptor (AR) activation dampens ethanol drinking behaviors in...
Adenosine signaling is associated with ethanol-related behaviors. We previously found that adenosine A receptor (AR) activation dampens ethanol drinking behaviors in equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (ENT1) knockout mice, and AR inhibition augments reward-seeking behavior in wild-type mice. The novel adenosine analog 6-(4-hydroxybenzyl)-adenosine (NHBA), which is isolated from the rhizomes of , activates AR and inhibits ENT1. Here, we examined the effects of NHBA on ethanol drinking in the two-bottle choice test and operant ethanol seeking behaviors. We selected mice exhibiting high ethanol drinking behavior in the two-bottle choice test. NHBA (0.1 mg/kg, i.p.) reduced ethanol drinking behavior in a limited-access 3-hour drinking session in high-consumption ethanol drinking mice, and NHBA (0.1 mg/kg, i.p.) did not alter locomotor activity in the open-field test. Operant conditioning with 10% ethanol and 10% sucrose (10E10S) reward increased zone entries and time spent in the ethanol zone, while NHBA (0.1 mg/kg, i.p.) dampened ethanol zone preference in the Y-maze. Furthermore, NHBA (0.1 mg/kg, i.p.) devalued 10E10S and 10% ethanol (10E) reward after operant conditioning with 10E10S and 10E. Taken together, NHBA through AR activation and ENT1 modulation may dampen ethanol drinking and seeking behaviors, suggesting that NHBA is a potential therapeutic agent for treating alcohol use disorder. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Our work highlights that AR activation and ENT1 inhibition by a novel adenosine analog isolated from , 6-(4-hydroxybenzyl)-adenosine, decreases ethanol drinking and seeking behaviors. We suggest that NHBA is a potential therapeutic agent to treat alcohol use disorder.
Topics: Adenosine; Alcohol Drinking; Animals; Conditioning, Operant; Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; Drug-Seeking Behavior; Male; Maze Learning; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL
PubMed: 31409667
DOI: 10.1124/jpet.119.261529 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Feb 2013Operant conditioning is a type of associative learning involving different and complex sensorimotor and cognitive processes. Because the hippocampus has been related to...
Operant conditioning is a type of associative learning involving different and complex sensorimotor and cognitive processes. Because the hippocampus has been related to some motor and cognitive functions involved in this type of learning (such as object recognition, spatial orientation, and associative learning tasks), we decided to study in behaving mice the putative changes in strength taking place at the hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapses during the acquisition and performance of an operant conditioning task. Mice were chronically implanted with stimulating electrodes in the Schaffer collaterals and with recording electrodes in the hippocampal CA1 area and trained to an operant task using a fixed-ratio (1:1) schedule. We recorded the field EPSPs (fEPSPs) evoked at the CA3-CA1 synapse during the performance of appetitive (going to the lever, lever press) and consummatory (going to the feeder, eating) behaviors. In addition, we recorded the local field potential activity of the CA1 area during similar behavioral displays. fEPSPs evoked at the CA3-CA1 synapse presented larger amplitudes for appetitive than for consummatory behaviors. This differential change in synaptic strength took place in relation to the learning process, depending mainly on the moment in which mice reached the selected criterion. Thus, selective changes in CA3-CA1 synaptic strength were dependent on both the behavior display and the learning stage. In addition, significant changes in theta band power peaks and their corresponding discrete frequencies were noticed during these behaviors across the sequence of events characterizing this type of associative learning but not during the acquisition process.
Topics: Animals; Appetitive Behavior; Conditioning, Operant; Consummatory Behavior; Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials; Hippocampus; Male; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Motor Activity; Nerve Net
PubMed: 23392660
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1013-12.2013