scholarly journals Basolateral amygdala nucleus responses to appetitive conditioned stimuli correlate with variations in conditioned behaviour

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung-Chan Lee ◽  
Alon Amir ◽  
Drew B. Headley ◽  
Darrell Haufler ◽  
Denis Pare
Keyword(s):  
Basolateral Amygdala ◽  
Conditioned Stimuli ◽  
Conditioned Behaviour

scholarly journals Population coding of valence in the basolateral amygdala

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xian Zhang ◽  
Bo Li
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Reversal Learning ◽  
Basolateral Amygdala ◽  
Population Coding ◽  
Neuronal Responses ◽  
Conditioned Stimuli ◽  
Reward And Punishment

AbstractThe basolateral amygdala (BLA) plays an important role in associative learning, by representing both conditioned stimuli (CSs) and unconditioned stimuli (USs) of positive and negative valences, and by forming associations between CSs and USs. However, how such associations are formed and updated during learning remains unclear. Here we show that associative learning driven by reward and punishment profoundly alters BLA neuronal responses at population levels, reducing noise correlations and transforming the representations of CSs to resemble the distinctive valence-specific representations of USs. This transformation is accompanied by the emergence of prevalent inhibitory CS and US responses, and by the plasticity of CS responses in individual BLA neurons. During reversal learning wherein the expected valences are reversed, BLA population CS representations are remapped onto ensembles representing the opposite valences and track the switching in valence-specific behavioral actions. Our results reveal how signals predictive of opposing valences in the BLA evolve during reward and punishment learning, and how these signals might be updated and used to guide flexible behaviors.

scholarly journals Basolateral amygdala glutamatergic neurons maintain aversive emotional salience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Auntora Sengupta ◽  
Joanna O.Y. Yau ◽  
Philip Jean-Richard Dit Bressel ◽  
Yu Liu ◽  
E. Zayra Millan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Basolateral Amygdala ◽  
Therapeutic Interventions ◽  
Fear Learning ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Conditioned Stimuli ◽  
Safety Behavior ◽  
Glutamatergic Neurons ◽  
Behavioral Tasks

AbstractBasolateral amygdala (BLA) glutamatergic neurons serve a well-accepted role in fear conditioning and fear extinction. However, the specific learning processes related to their activity at different times during learning remain poorly understood. We addressed this using behavioral tasks isolating distinct aspects of fear learning in rats. We show that brief optogenetic inhibition of BLA glutamatergic neurons around moments of aversive reinforcement or non-reinforcement causes reductions in the salience of conditioned stimuli, rendering these stimuli less able to be learned about and less able to control fear or safety behaviours. This salience reduction was stimulus-specific, long-lasting, and specific to aversive emotional states - precisely the goals of therapeutic interventions in human anxiety disorders. Our findings identify a core learning process disrupted by brief BLA optogenetic inhibition. They show that a primary function of BLA glutamatergic neurons is to maintain the salience of conditioned stimuli. This is a necessary precursor for these stimuli to gain and maintain control over fear and safety behavior.Significance statementThe amygdala is essential for learning to fear and learning to reduce fear. However, the specific roles served by activity of different amygdala neurons at different times during learning is poorly understood. We used behavioral tasks isolating distinct aspects of learning in rats to show that brief optogenetic inhibition of BLA glutamatergic neurons around moments of reinforcement or non-reinforcement disrupts maintenance of conditioned stimulus (CS) salience. This causes a stimulus-specific, long-lasting, and aversive emotion specific deficit in the ability of the CS to be learned about or control fear responses. These consequences are the precisely goals of therapeutic interventions in human anxiety disorders. Our findings identify a core learning process disrupted by brief BLA optogenetic inhibition.

Properties of compound conditioned stimuli and their components.

1968 ◽  
Vol 70 (6, Pt.1) ◽  
pp. 611-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Conditioned Stimuli

Response to Conditioned Stimuli by Two Rehabilitated and Released West Indian Manatees (Trichechus manatus latirostris)

2006 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendi Fellner ◽  
Kim Odell ◽  
Allison Corwin ◽  
Lisa Davis ◽  
Cathy Goonen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
West Indian ◽  
Conditioned Stimuli ◽  
Trichechus Manatus ◽  
Trichechus Manatus Latirostris

Empathy Does Not Amplify Vicarious Threat Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Lane Williams ◽  
Christopher C Conway
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Skin Conductance ◽  
Defensive Response ◽  
Conditioned Stimuli ◽  
Defensive Reaction ◽  
Direct Exposure ◽  
Conditioned Responses ◽  
Clinically Significant ◽  
Stimulus Materials ◽  
Dispositional Empathy

Clinically significant fears and phobias can be acquired vicariously. Witnessing a demonstrator’s defensive reaction to potentially dangerous objects and situations can instill conditioned threat responses in the observer. The present study concentrates on individual differences in this social learning process. Specifically, we hypothesized that dispositional empathy modulates vicarious threat conditioning. We examined university students’ (N = 150) conditioned threat responding after they observed strangers undergo Pavlovian threat conditioning. There was evidence of a substantial conditioned defensive response (Cohen’s d = 0.66), as indexed by elevated skin conductance reactions during participants’ direct exposure to the vicariously conditioned stimuli. Contrary to expectations, indices of dispositional empathy were weakly related to the size of conditioned responses (median r = .04). Our results confirm that vicarious threat learning can be evaluated experimentally, but they do not support the hypothesis that empathy amplifies this process. The preregistration, stimulus materials, data, and analysis code for this study are available at https://osf.io/h6hm2.

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