Journal
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 25, Issue 8, Pages 2498-2503Publisher
BLACKWELL PUBLISHING
DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2007.05486.x
Keywords
behavioural flexibility; context; medial prefrontal cortex; spontaneous recovery
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
It is well established that extinction is highly context dependent, and several behavioural phenomena associated with the expression of extinction (spontaneous recovery, reinstatement and renewal) have been described as resulting from this context dependency. It has previously been shown that lesions of the infralimbic (IL) region of the medial prefrontal cortex result in increased levels of spontaneous recovery and reinstatement of an extinguished appetitive Pavlovian conditioned response. The current study shows that lesions of the IL cortex also result in increased renewal of a conditioned response when tested in the acquisition context. Thirteen IL-lesioned and 14 sham-lesioned rats were trained on an appetitive Pavlovian task in one context (Context A) followed by extinction in a different context (Context B); animals were then tested for renewal of responding in both Context A and B. Both groups demonstrated similarly low levels of responding when tested in the extinction context (B), and greater responding (i.e. renewal) when tested in the acquisition context (A). Further, the level of response renewal was greater in IL-lesioned animals. The results are discussed in relation to the possible role of the IL cortex in contextual control of extinction.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available