Behavioural neuroscienceThe role of different subregions of the basolateral amygdala in cue-induced reinstatement and extinction of food-seeking behavior
Section snippets
Animals
Male Long-Evans rats (Charles River Laboratories, Montreal, QC, Canada) weighing 275–350 g were used. Upon initial arrival into the colony, rats were group housed in plastic cages in a temperature-controlled colony room on a 12-h light/dark schedule, with ad libitum access to water for the duration of the experiment. All testing was in accordance of the Canadian Council of Animal Care and the Animal Care Committee of the University of British Columbia. All efforts were made to minimize the
Discussion
The primary objective of the present study was to determine the role of the BLA in reinstatement for food-related cues, and to compare these results with previous studies using drug-related cues (McLaughlin and See, 2003). In experiment 1, inactivation of the caudal BLA did not attenuate responding for a CS associated with food reward, and in fact enhanced responding for the CS relative to saline treatments. This indicates that this region of the BLA facilitates extinction of instrumental
Conclusion
In conclusion, the present data indicate that different regions of the BLA appear to be play distinct roles in cue-induced reinstatement induced by stimuli associated with natural or drug rewards. The rostral aspects of the BLA appear to mediate reinstatement of responding for conditioned reinforcers associated with cocaine (Kantak et al 2002, McLaughlin and See 2003), whereas the caudal regions facilitate extinction of instrumental responding for a CS associated with food or drug rewards.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by an operating grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to S.B.F. R.J.M. is a recipient of a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR) Junior Graduate Studentship Award. S.B.F. is a CIHR New Investigator and an MSFHR Scholar. We are grateful to Dr. Catharine Winstanley for her useful comments on our manuscript.
References (48)
- et al.
Effects of excitotoxic lesions of the basolateral amygdala on conditional discrimination learning with primary and conditioned reinforcement
Behav Brain Res
(1999) - et al.
Differential effects of excitotoxic lesions of the basolateral amygdala, ventral subiculum and medial prefrontal cortex on responding with conditioned reinforcement and locomotor activity potentiated by intra-accumbens infusions of D amphetamine
Behav Brain Res
(1993) - et al.
Involvement of the amygdala in stimulus-reward associations: interaction with the ventral striatum
Neuroscience
(1989) - et al.
The basolateral amygdala-ventral striatal system and conditioned place preference: further evidence of limbic-striatal interactions underlying reward-related processes
Neuroscience
(1991) - et al.
Effects of excitotoxic lesions of the basolateral amygdala on cocaine-seeking behavior and cocaine conditioned place preference in rats
Brain Res
(2002) - et al.
Dissociation of primary and secondary reward-relevant limbic nuclei in an animal model of relapse
Neuropsychopharmacology
(2000) - et al.
Enhanced dopamine efflux in the amygdala by a predictive, but not a non-predictive, stimulus: facilitation by prior repeated D-amphetamine
Neuroscience
(1999) - et al.
Projections of the medial and lateral prefrontal cortices to the amygdala: a Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin study in the rat
Neuroscience
(1996) Organization of amygdaloid projections to the prefrontal cortex and associated striatum in the rat
Neuroscience
(1991)- et al.
Lesions of the basolateral amygdala abolish the ability of drug associated cues to reinstate responding during withdrawal from self-administered cocaine
Behav Brain Res
(1997)
Neurobehavioral mechanisms of reward and motivation
Curr Opin Neurobiol
Amygdala modulates memory for changes in reward magnitude: reversible post-training inactivation with lidocaine attenuates the response to a reduction in reward
Behav Brain Res
Topographic organization of collateral projections from the basolateral amygdaloid nucleus to both the prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens in the rat
Neuroscience
Repeated cocaine administration alters the electrophysiological properties of prefrontal cortical neurons
Neuroscience
Effects of SCH-23390 infused into the amygdala or adjacent cortex and basal ganglia on cocaine seeking and self-administration in rats
Neuropsychopharmacology
N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor-dependent plasticity within a distributed corticostriatal network mediates appetitive instrumental learning
Behav Neurosci
The effect of lesions of the basolateral amygdala on instrumental conditioning
J Neurosci
The amygdala and reward
Nat Rev Neurosci
Lesions of the basolateral amygdala disrupt selective aspects of reinforcer representation in rats
J Neurosci
Selective disruption of nucleus accumbens gating mechanisms in rats behaviorally sensitized to methamphetamine
J Neurosci
The patterns of afferent innervation of the core and shell in the “accumbens” part of the rat ventral striatum: immunohistochemical detection of retrogradely transported fluoro-gold
J Comp Neurol
Cocaine-predictive stimulus induces drug-seeking behavior and neural activation in limbic brain regions after multiple months of abstinence: reversal by D1 antagonists
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Afferent connections of the medial frontal cortex of the ratII. Cortical and subcortical afferents
J Comp Neurol
Double dissociation of basolateral and central amygdala lesions on the general and outcome-specific forms of pavlovian-instrumental transfer
J Neurosci
Cited by (70)
Neural correlates of recall and extinction in a rat model of appetitive Pavlovian conditioning
2023, Behavioural Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :In the BLA, we did not detect a significant difference in Fos density in either the paired or unpaired groups compared to the home-cage control, or between recall and extinction. However, the BLA has been shown to have a prominent role in extinction learning using aversive Pavlovian conditioning [53,58,62,114] and operant reward-seeking procedures for both natural and drug rewards [30,32,71,72]. Interestingly, others have shown using single-unit recordings that the BLA is involved in learning during over-expectation, although inactivation of the BLA has no effect on responding in over-expectation using a sucrose reward [41,64].
Engagement of lateral habenula in the extinction of the appetitive conditioned responses
2021, Behavioural Brain ResearchEffects of methylazoxymethanol-induced micrencephaly on parvalbumin-positive GABAergic interneurons in the rat rostral basolateral amygdala
2021, Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :Therefore, our results on the effects of EE on PV-positive cell numbers were consistent with those of Urakawa et al. Several reports have demonstrated functional differences between the rostral and caudal BLA (Kantak et al., 2002; McLaughlin and Floresco, 2007; Mashhoon et al., 2009). The differences in EE effects on the number of PV-positive neurons between the rostral and caudal levels of the BLA may reflect the regional heterogeneity in the physiological functions of the BLA.
Understanding the dynamic and destiny of memories
2021, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsCitation Excerpt :Besides its role in fear extinction, BLA neurons have been also implicated in the extinction of reward-associated memories. Increased neuronal activity in a subpopulation of BLA neurons has been correlated with extinction of sucrose-seeking behavior (Tye et al., 2010), and lesions or pharmacological modulation of BLA activity impairs the extinction of appetitive conditioned responses (Balleine et al., 2003; McLaughlin and Floresco, 2007; Portero-Tresserra et al., 2013). BLA neurons send dense projections to the nucleus accumbens (McDonald, 1991; Wright et al., 1996), a critical region in the regulation of reward-seeking responses (for a review see: Baldo and Kelley, 2007; Castro and Bruchas, 2019).
Serotonergic modulation of basolateral amygdala nucleus in the extinction of reward-driven learning: The role of 5-HT bioavailability and 5-HT<inf>1A</inf> receptor
2021, Behavioural Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :We expected a stronger effect of BLA lesions on the extinction performance, given its central role in the transfer of the motivational value from the US to the CS in Pavlovian learning [17]. Moreover, several studies have already shown that BLA is involved in updating reward values, and in the extinction of appetitive conditioned responses [44–46]. Experiment 2 proved that combination of BLA lesion with fluoxetine treatment partially reversed the effect of the drug.
Astrocyte modulation of extinction impairments in ethanol-dependent female mice
2020, Neuropharmacology