Complementary roles for the amygdala and hippocampus in aversive conditioning to explicit and contextual cues

Organization of projections from the basomedial nucleus of the amygdala: a PHAL study in the rat

The organization of axonal projections from the basomedial nucleus of the amygdala (BMA) was examined with the Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin (PHAL) method in adult male rats. The anterior and posterior parts of the BMA, recognized on cytoarchitectonic grounds, display very different projection patterns. Within the amygdala, the anterior basomedial nucleus (BMAa) heavily innervates the central, medial, and anterior cortical nuclei. In contrast, the posterior basomedial nucleus (BMAp) sends a dense projection to the lateral nucleus, and to restricted parts of the central and medial nuclei. Extra-amygdalar projections from the BMA are divided into ascending and descending components. The former end in the cerebral cortex, striatum, and septum. The BMAa mainly innervates olfactory (piriform, transitional) and insular areas, whereas the BMAp also innervates inferior temporal (perirhinal, ectorhinal) and medial prefrontal (infralimbic, prelimbic) areas and the hippocampal formation. Within the striatum, the BMAa densely innervates the striatal fundus, whereas the nucleus accumbens receives a heavy input from the BMAp. Both parts of the BMA send massive projections to distinct regions of the bed nuclei of the stria terminalis. Descending projections from the BMA end primarily in the hypothalamus. The BMAa sends a major input to the lateral hypothalamic area, whereas the BMAp innervates the ventromedial nucleus particularly heavily. Injections were also placed in the anterior cortical nucleus (COAa), a cell group superficially adjacent to the BMAa. PHAL-labeled axons from this cell group mainly ascend into the amygdala and olfactory areas, and descend into the thalamus and lateral hypothalamic area. Based on connections, the COAa and BMAa are part of the same functional system. The results suggest that cytoarchitectonically distinct anterior and posterior parts of the BMA are also hodologically distinct and form parts of distinct anatomical circuits probably involved in mediating different behaviors (for example, feeding and social behaviors vs. emotion-related learning, respectively).

Hippocampal-dependent learning and experience-dependent activation of the hippocampus are preferentially disrupted by ethanol

A classical fear conditioning paradigm was used to examine the effect of acute ethanol on the acquisition of context conditioning, a hippocampal-dependent associative task, and tone conditioning, a hippocampal-independent task. Administration of ethanol before the presentation of seven tone-shock pairings severely disrupted the acquisition of context conditioning, but had only a slight effect on tone conditioning, when conditioned fear was measured 48 h later. This effect was dose dependent: a dose of 0.5 g/kg had no effect on either context or tone conditioning, while doses of 1.0 and 1.5 g/kg disrupted context conditioning by 78-86%, and tone conditioning by 9-17%. Subsequent experiments indicated that ethanol's preferential effect on context conditioning could not be attributed to the fact that context conditioning is weaker than tone conditioning, ethanol-induced changes in motivational state or state-dependent learning. The effect of ethanol on stimulus-induced increases in hippocampal and neocortical expression of c-fos mRNA, a marker for changes in metabolic neuronal activity, was also examined. Ethanol completely blocked the induction of hippocampal c-fos mRNA by exposure to the conditioning context alone or seven tone-shock pairings, but only attenuated neocortical responses to these stimuli. Together, these results suggest that ethanol disrupts hippocampal-dependent learning by preferentially impairing stimulus processing at the level of the hippocampus.

Dissociations in hippocampal 5-hydroxytryptamine release in the rat following Pavlovian aversive conditioning to discrete and contextual stimuli

The experiments examined the release of 5-hydroxytryptamine using in vivo microdialysis methods in the hippocampus of freely moving rats following Pavlovian aversive conditioning to discrete and contextual stimuli. Differential conditioning was achieved by manipulating the interval between the offset of a discrete auditory 'clicker' stimulus and the onset of a mild foot-shock reinforcer (0.5 mA, 0.5 s). Foot-shock occurred either simultaneously with the last second of the discrete auditory stimulus (in short-trace subjects) or 60 s later (long-trace subjects). In this way, subjects were preferentially conditioned to the discrete stimulus and background 'contextual' stimuli respectively. During conditioning subjects also received two identical unpaired visual stimuli. At test, dialysates were collected and behavioural measures taken as all animals experienced (i) the aversive and two other 'neutral' environments, and (ii) the discrete unconditioned and conditioned stimuli presented in both aversive and neutral environments. Exposure to the aversive environment, but not to either of the two neutral environments, was associated with significantly increased hippocampal 5-hydroxytryptamine release in long-trace subjects. There was also a small but non-significant increase in 5-hydroxytryptamine release in short-trace animals. In contrast, hippocampal 5-hydroxytryptamine release was unaffected by presentation of either of the discrete stimuli under all conditions. The last result was obtained despite robust behavioural responses (freezing) to the discrete conditioned stimulus. These data do not agree with the hypothesis that aversive cues generally activate 5-hydroxytryptamine function in the hippocampus. Rather, they suggest a degree of specificity whereby 5-hydroxytryptamine release in the hippocampus was determined primarily by other qualitative properties of the conditioned aversive stimulus, namely whether the aversive cue was discrete or contextual, as well as by the magnitude of conditioning.

Conditioned and unconditioned stimuli increase frontal cortical and hippocampal acetylcholine release: effects of novelty, habituation, and fear

Recent evidence showing that basal forebrain cholinergic neurons with projections to the frontal cortex and hippocampus are activated by behaviorally salient stimuli suggests that these neurons are involved in arousal and/or attentional processes. We sought in the present experiments to test this hypothesis by examining whether unconditioned stimuli (a tone and flashing light) that normally increase cortical nad hippocampal acetylcholine (ACh) release would fail to do so after habituation (i.e., repeated presentation with no programmed consequences). In addition, the extent to which presentation of these stimuli would continue to increase ACh release when they had previously been paired with an aversive stimulus was investigated. Three experimental groups were used: habituation, novel stimuli, and conditioned fear. Subjects in each of these groups were placed in a training apparatus for twelve 200 min sessions. While the habituation group received extensive exposure to the tone and light during the training sessions, subjects in the novel stimuli group were placed in the apparatus but were never exposed to the tone or light during these sessions. The conditioned fear group was treated identically to the habituation group, with the addition that the tone and light were paired with footshock. On completion of these training schedules, all animals were implanted with microdialysis probes in the frontal cortex and hippocampus. Two days later, they were placed in the apparatus and the tone and light were presented to all subjects during microdialysis. In the novel stimuli group, the tone and light (unconditioned stimuli) produced significant increases in frontal cortical and hippocampal ACh release. Similarly, in the conditioned fear group, presentation of the tone and light (conditioned stimuli) also significantly increased ACh release in frontal cortex and hippocampus. In contrast, in the habituation group the tone and light failed to significantly enhance ACh release in either structure. During the test session, the tone and light elicited a variety of arousal- and fear-related behaviors in the novel stimuli and conditioned fear groups. In contrast, subjects in the habituation group generally failed to respond to these stimuli. These data indicate that cortically and hippocampally projecting basal forebrain cholinergic neurons are activated by conditioned and unconditioned stimuli that produce arousal in rats (novelty or conditioned fear). In contrast, presentation of these stimuli to habituated animals fails to enhance ACh release. These findings are consistent with a growing body of information indicating that ACh release in the cortex and hippocampus is reliably activated by behaviorally relevant stimuli. They also provide strong support for the hypothesis that cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain are involved in arousal and/or attentional processes.

Changes in synaptic excitability in the lateral septum associated with contextual and auditory fear conditioning in mice

Synaptic excitability in the lateral septum (LS) was assessed electrophysiologically in freely moving mice either submitted to a painful stimulus (shock) or tested on two forms of conditioned fear: contextual conditioning and auditory cue conditioning. Only the amplitude of the N3 component of the two negative waves (N2 and N3) evoked by fimbrial stimulation displayed significant changes in these tests. Experiment 1 showed that both the painful stimulus and subsequent re-exposure (24 h later) to the conditioning foreground context induced significant and context specific decrease in the N3 amplitude. In Experiment 2, a phasic tone (conditioned stimulus: CS) was paired (paired group) with the footshock (unconditioned stimulus: US) or not (unpaired group) and, 24 h later, animals were re-exposed successively to the auditory cue and to the context. During the auditory cue test, only the paired group displayed significant freezing and this occurred only during presentation of the CS. In this group, however, a significant reduction in the N3 amplitude was only observed immediately after the cessation of the CS. During the context test, the percentage and time-course of freezing across the 10 mm session were similar in each group. However, in the unpaired group the N3 amplitude reduction was significant and outlasted the duration of the freezing behaviour itself. These results show that alterations in LS synaptic excitability may be dissociated from fear-induced freezing behaviour. We suggest that LS synapses are part of a brain circuit that predict if and when the US is going to occur.

A developmental analysis of contextual fear conditioning

Contextual fear conditioning by 18- and 23-day-old rats was compared in two training contexts, a transparent Plexiglas chamber or a black Plexiglas chamber. As measured by a conditioned defensive freezing response, older rats displayed more contextual fear than younger rats. At both ages conditioning was (a) stronger in the black chamber than in the clear chamber, (b) a nonmonotonic function of retention interval, with freezing being greater at the immediate and 24-hr retention interval than at the 10-min interval, and (c) preexposure to the context 24 hr before conditioning enhanced conditioned freezing observed at the 10-min retention interval. Additional experiments suggest that rats at both ages acquire independent representations of the visual and tactile features of the context. These results support Rudy and Morledge's (1994) hypothesis that contextual fear conditioning is mediated by both a short-term and a long-term memory system and that long-term memory for contextual fear requires the consolidation of a representation of the context. They challenge their view that there is a qualitative developmental difference in long-term memory processes between 18- and 23-day-old rats.

Participation of the glutamatergic input of the nucleus accumbens in the regulation of the synaptic release of dopamine during associative learning

The changes in the synaptic release of dopamine in the medial division of the nucleus accumbens in the course of a conditioned emotional response and the influence on this process of the blockade of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors of this structure were investigated in awake Lister-hooded rats, using the method of intravital intracerebral dialysis in combination with high-pressure liquid chromatography and electrochemical detection. It was established that situational stimuli, previously combined with painful reinforcement, but not acoustic conditional signals, lead to a slow increase in the level of dopamine in the extracellular space of the nucleus accumbens. This process reaches a maximum 40 min after the beginning of testing and lasts 80 min. Dialysis perfusion of the nucleus accumbens with a solution of MK-801 (50 mumole/liter) does not alter the magnitude of the slow rise in the synaptic release of dopamine in this structure in the course of the conditioned emotional response, but completely blocks the late components of the release. It is concluded that the glutamatergic input of the nucleus accumbens participates in the regulation of the late components of the synaptic release of dopamine, governed by the conditioned emotional response, in this structure through NMDA receptors.

What does the hippocampus really do?

Much of the evidence used to implicate the hippocampus in learning and memory has been obtained from clinical cases and/or experimental studies with animals where the damage is extensive and includes more than just the hippocampus. When the damage is limited to the cells that comprise the hippocampus (CA1-CA3 pyramidal cells, hilar and granule cells in the dentate gyrus) the effect on behavior in the rat is more limited than what is usually reported. Selective, axon-sparing ibotenic acid lesions of the hippocampus were used in the experiments that are reviewed to study the effects of removing the hippocampus on: (1) the acquisition of spatial and non-spatial information; (2) complex, non-spatial representational learning; and (3) acquisition and utilization of contextual information. The results indicated that rats with the hippocampus removed were impaired on those tasks that require the utilization of spatial and contextual information but performed like controls in learning about and handling (even complex) non-spatial information. Future research utilizing selective lesions of the hippocampus and sensitive behavioral testing techniques should help clarify the extent to which the impairments in the acquisition of spatial information and the ability to utilize contextual, background cues can be reduced to a single, underlying learning process.

Differential effects of forebrain 5-hydroxytryptamine depletions on Pavlovian aversive conditioning to discrete and contextual stimuli in the rat

The experiments examined the effects of depleting forebrain 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT) on Pavlovian aversive conditioning to discrete and contextual stimuli. Rats were lesioned with intracerebroventricular injections of the neurotoxin 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine and then conditioned in a distinctive environment (termed the context) to a 30 s auditory stimulus. In 50% of animals the interval between the offset of the discrete auditory stimulus and the reinforcer, a mild foot-shock (0.5 mA, 0.5 s), was 5 s (the short-trace group) and in the other 50%, 30 s (the long-trace group). Theory predicts that animals in the short-trace condition will learn more about the discrete stimulus as a predictor of shock and become strongly conditioned, while those in the long-trace condition learn relatively more about the context. The extent of conditioning to the discrete and contextual stimuli was assessed separately, in extinction, using lick-suppression and place-preference measures respectively. Under these conditions sham subjects exhibited the expected dissociation with respect to trace interval. However, lesioned animals exhibited a specific impairment in contextual conditioning. The results are discussed in terms of the behavioural, neurochemical and neuroanatomical specificity of 5HT function in aversive conditioning and the implications for general theories of the role of 5HT in aversive processes.

Conditioned dopamine release: dependence upon N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors

The study have investigated the effect of a conditioned emotional response using a contextual cue on dopamine release in the rat nucleus accumbens, measured with in vivo microdialysis, and its inhibition by N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist dizocilpine maleate. The extracellular level of dopamine in the medial nucleus accumbens markedly increased for up to 40 min when rats were given mild footshock in the testing box. When the rats were returned to the testing box, but not given footshock (conditioned emotional response), there was an immediate and long-lasting (80 min) increase in extracellular dopamine. Dizocilpine maleate (50 mumol/l) administered into the nucleus accumbens through the dialysis probe had no significant effect on the immediate increase in dopamine induced by conditioned emotional response but completely prevented the later phase. Dizocilpine maleate had no effect on basal dopamine release in control rats but decreased basal dopamine in rats exposed to footshock 2 h previously. The alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazoleproprionate/kainate antagonist 6-cyano-7-nitroquinnoxaline-2,3-dione (100 mumol/l) had no effect on the increase in dopamine release in response to conditioned emotional response. The results indicate that the acquisition of conditioned emotional response causes long-lasting changes in the mechanisms involved in the glutamatergic control of dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens. Furthermore glutamate inputs into the nucleus accumbens may also regulate the delayed phase of conditioned dopamine release during expression of conditioned emotional response to a contextural cue through activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors.

The effects of AMPA-induced lesions of the medial septum and vertical limb nucleus of the diagonal band of Broca on spatial delayed non-matching to sample and spatial learning in the water maze

These experiments investigated in the rat the impact on spatial delayed non-matching to sample and on acquisition of the Morris water maze of (i) AMPA-induced lesions of the medial septal nucleus, which produced a marked reduction of hippocampal choline acetyltransferase activity and acetylcholine levels (measured using in vivo dialysis) together with lesser reductions in cholinergic markers in the cingulate cortex and (ii) similar AMPA-induced lesions of the vertical limb nucleus of the diagonal band of Broca (vDB), which produced more marked reductions in cholinergic markers in the cingulate cortex than in the hippocampus. Medial septal lesions produced a delay-dependent deficit in spatial working memory, while lesions of the vDB resulted in a delay-independent performance deficit. In addition, rats with vDB lesions adopted biased response strategies during the imposition of long delays. Neither lesion significantly affected the acquisition of a spatial reference memory task, the Morris water maze. The results are discussed in terms of cholinergic- and GABAergic-dependent functions of the hippocampal formation and cingulate cortex in spatial short-term and reference memory.

The effects of AMPA-induced lesions of the septo-hippocampal cholinergic projection on aversive conditioning to explicit and contextual cues and spatial learning in the water maze

The environmental context of an animal both subsumes and is associated with the explicit cues that guide its behavioural responses. Recent work in this laboratory suggests that learning about the relationship between the cues which comprise a context depends on the hippocampus. In the present study the role of the cholinergic input to the hippocampus in contextual learning was assessed in rats using a conditioned stimulus/context conditioning paradigm and spatial learning in the Morris water maze. In the former, a place preference apparatus provided the context. The subject was confined in the black chamber and a 'clicker' conditioned stimulus was presented five times in a 20 min period. A trace interval of 5 or 30 s, depending on the group, was interposed between the end of the clicker and a footshock. Theory predicts that animals in the 5 s condition will learn more about the clicker as a predictor of shock and become strongly conditioned, while those in the 30 s condition learn relatively more about the context. Conditioning to the clicker (conditioned stimulus) was measured in a separate lick suppression chamber--presentation of the clicker suppresses drinking, and contextual learning was determined by recording the time spent on the black side of the place preference apparatus when both the black and a familiar white chamber were accessible. Lesions of the medial septum/diagonal band induced by RS-alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid (AMPA) enhanced contextual learning in this paradigm but disrupted conditioned stimulus conditioning in the 30 s condition. Acquisition of the Morris water maze was largely unimpaired. The results are suggested to reflect a shift towards the use of hippocampal-dependent contextual learning strategies in lesioned animals.

Configural association theory and the hippocampal formation: an appraisal and reconfiguration

Sutherland and Rudy ([1989] Psychobiology 17:129-144) proposed that the hippocampal system is critical to normal learning and memory because of its function as the central part of a configural association system. This system constructs a unique representation of the joint occurrence of the independent elements of a compound. There is evidence consistent with the theory's predictions, however, there also are data that unambiguously demonstrate that, under some conditions, animals lacking an intact hippocampal system acquire configural associations. Thus, Sutherland and Rudy's fundamental assumption cannot be correct. To integrate the supporting and contradictory data, we propose two simple modifications of our position: 1) The critical neural system for configural associations is in cortical circuitry outside the hippocampus, and 2) the output from the hippocampal formation contributes to configural processing by selectively enhancing, thereby making more salient, cortical units representing stimulus conjunctions. This enhancement has two important effects: 1) It decreases the similarity between the configural units representing the co-occurrence of cues and the units representing the cues, and 2) It increases the rate at which the configural units can acquire associative strength. The modified theory explains why damage to the hippocampal formation only impairs learning on a subset of nonlinear discrimination problems. It also integrates recent data on the effects of hippocampal formation damage on conditioning involving context cues and makes novel predictions about performance on nonlinear discrimination problems and place learning.

The assessment of sequential response organization in schizophrenic and control subjects

1. A novel analysis is introduced for the sequential organization of behavioral elements derived from the ergodic theory of nonlinear dynamical systems and statistical mechanics of physical systems. 2. This analysis yields the fluctuation spectrum of local dynamical entropies, S (h), which quantifies the contributions of subsequences with different degrees of association between elements to the overall observed behavior. In addition, q-dependent order parameter functions assess the relationship between the degree of association between consecutive behavioral elements and qualitative aspects of the subsequences. 3. A binary choice task paradigm is used to extract thought-contingent responses in order to determine the organization of sequences of behavioral actions. 4. A group a schizophrenic patients and controls was tested with a binary choice task paradigm to determine the sequential organization of their responses. 5. The results indicate that the overall response sequences of both schizophrenics and controls are non-random. In addition, clear differences in qualitative aspects between response subsequences with different degrees of association are revealed. Finally, significant fluctuations within individual subjects were found between highly predictable and highly unpredictable response subsequences. 6. These results are discussed with respect to dysregulations in behavioral organization that could not be assessed previously and may provide new insights into the behavioral effects of the underlying dysregulated neural circuitry.

Morphine analgesia in the formalin test: evidence for forebrain and midbrain sites of action

A mapping study was performed to determine where in the rat brain morphine acts to produce analgesia in the formalin test, which is an animal model of prolonged pain associated with tissue injury. A single dose (5 nmol) of morphine was bilaterally microinjected into a wide range of brain areas throughout the midbrain and forebrain. Strong analgesia was elicited from the posterior hypothalamic area, the periaqueductal gray and ventral tegmental area. Other sites from which analgesia was elicited were the nucleus accumbens and a few sites in the retrorubral field and caudate-putamen. Analgesia from the periaqueductal gray or nucleus accumbens was accompanied by decreased locomotor activity and catalepsy, whereas analgesia from the posterior hypothalamic area or ventral tegmentum was accompanied by a noticeable increase in locomotor activity and rearing. Morphine into various thalamic nuclei had no effect. These results indicate that the primary sites of action of morphine in the formalin test are probably the posterior hypothalamic area and periaqueductal gray, with an additional contribution from regions innervated by tegmental dopamine cells.

Lesions of the dorsal hippocampal formation interfere with background but not foreground contextual fear conditioning

The effects of hippocampal lesions on the conditioning of fear responses (freezing responses) to contextual stimuli (static, continuously present stimuli) were examined in three conditioning paradigms: forward pairing of a phasic tone conditioned stimulus (CS) with a footshock unconditioned stimulus (US), unpaired presentations of the CS and US, or presentations of the US alone. All three procedures resulted in the acquisition of conditioned freezing to contextual stimuli. Lesions of the dorsal hippocampus prevented the acquisition of contextual conditioning in the Paired procedure, as reported previously, but not in the Unpaired or US Alone procedures. In the Paired procedure, static contextual cues occur in the background, with the phasic tone CS being the primary stimulus that enters into the association with the US. However, in the other two procedures, where there is no phasic CS, the primary associations with the US involve static contextual stimuli, which are therefore in the foreground. We refer to these types of contextual conditioning as background and foreground contextual conditioning, respectively, and argue that the hippocampus is only involved in background contextual conditioning. These results have implications for understanding both fear conditioning and hippocampal function.

Intra-amygdala infusion of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist AP5 impairs acquisition but not performance of discriminated approach to an appetitive CS

The present experiments investigated the effects of blocking glutamate transmission in the amygdala on the learning and subsequent performance of a discriminated approach response to food, as well as on locomotor activity and a test of neophobia to food. In the appetitive conditioning experiment, three separate groups of rats received intra-amygdala infusions of PBS (phosphate-buffered saline) or 1.0 or 3.0 nmol of AP5, an antagonist at the NMDA glutamate receptor subtype, immediately before each conditioning session. The effects of AP5 on the performance of the discriminated approach response were tested in a fourth group of animals. AP5 dose-dependently impaired the discriminated approach response during the acquisition of the stimulus-reward association but had no effect on the performance of this response after this association was learned. These results suggest that glutamate transmission in the amygdala at the NMDA glutamate receptor subtype is important in the learning process. In separate experiments, intra-amygdala AP5 increased locomotor activity and attenuated the neophobia to food in a novel environment by increasing approaches to the food. Together, these findings parallel the effects of lesions to the basolateral amygdala. In addition, the specific effects on learning are consistent with the hypothesis that NMDA-receptor-mediated LTP underlies specific forms of learning within the amygdala.

Emotional memory systems in the brain

The neural mechanisms of emotion and memory have long been thought to reside side by side, if not in overlapping structures, of the limbic system. However, the limbic system concept is no longer acceptable as an account of the neural basis of memory or emotion and is being replaced with specific circuit accounts of specific emotional and memory processes. Emotional memory, a special category of memory involving the implicit (probably unconscious) learning and storage of information about the emotional significance of events, is modeled in rodent experiments using aversive classical conditioning techniques. The neural system underlying emotional memory critically involves the amygdala and structures with which it is connected. Afferent inputs from sensory processing areas of the thalamus and cortex mediate emotional learning in situations involving specific sensory cues, whereas learning about the emotional significance of more general, contextual cues involves projections to the amygdala from the hippocampal formation. Within the amygdala, the lateral nucleus (AL) is the sensory interface and the central nucleus the linkage with motor systems involved in the control of species-typical emotional behaviors and autonomic responses. Studies of cellular mechanisms in these pathways have focused on the direct relay to the lateral amygdala from the auditory thalamus. These studies show that single cells in AL respond to both conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus inputs, leading to the notion that AL might be a critical site of sensory-sensory integration in emotional learning. The thalamo-amygdala pathway also exhibits long-term potentiation, a form of synaptic plasticity that might underlie the emotional learning functions of the circuit. The thalamo-amygdala pathway contains and uses the amino acid glutamate in synaptic transmission, suggesting the possibility that an amino-acid mediated form of synaptic plasticity is involved in the emotional learning functions of the pathway. We are thus well on the way to a systems level and a cellular understanding of at least one form of emotional learning and memory.

On the role of the hippocampus in learning and memory in the rat

An overview of lesion experiments concerned with the involvement of the hippocampus in learning and memory in the rat is presented. Multiple injections of small amounts of ibotenic acid were used to selectively remove the hippocampus (dentate gyrus, hilar cells, CA1-CA3 pyramidal cells). Similar selective, axon-sparing ibotenate lesions of hippocampus were used in a series of learning and memory experiments employing tasks that are thought to be important in hippocampal function. The performance of rats with the hippocampus removed was compared with that of control animals in the acquisition and retention of spatial versus nonspatial information, forgetting of spatial and nonspatial information, contextual learning, recognition memory and concurrent discrimination learning, and complex representational learning (conditional discrimination and negative patterning learning). The general finding that rats without a hippocampus were impaired on those tasks that required the utilization of spatial and contextual information stands in contrast with the spared performance that was found in learning about and handling (even complex) nonspatial information. Rather than support for views that emphasize a role for the hippocampus in specific memory processes (working memory, declarative memory, temporary memory buffer, configural learning), the present results are more compatible with the idea that the hippocampus plays an especially important role in processing and remembering spatial and contextual information. The limited data that are available using more selective lesions of related hippocampal formation structures (entorhinal cortex, subiculum) suggest that these structures also make important contributions to learning and memory, and that some of these contributions may be different from those made by the hippocampus.

A role for hippocampus in the utilization of hunger signals

The hippocampus is generally regarded as an important anatomical substrate for learning and memory (e.g., Eichenbaum, Otto, & Cohen, Behavioral and Neural Biology, 57, 2-36, 1992; Squire, Psychological Review, 99, 195-231, 1992). In the present research, we provide evidence that the hippocampus is also involved with another function--utilization of hunger state signals. Rats with selective ibotenate lesions of the hippocampus were found to be impaired in their ability to discriminate between the interoceptive sensory consequences of food deprivation and satiation. At the same time the ability of these rats to discriminate between different exteroceptive cues was unaffected. These results suggest that deficits in discriminative performance were specific to interoceptive state stimuli. In addition, hippocampal-damaged rats also seemed unable to use their food deprivation stimuli as signals to engage in normal feeding behavior. Our results argue that although the hippocampus may be important for learning and memory processes, it also deserves consideration as a neural substrate for the regulation of food intake and perhaps other functions which involve interoceptive signals.

Effects of medial dorsal thalamic and ventral pallidal lesions on the acquisition of a conditioned place preference: further evidence for the involvement of the ventral striatopallidal system in reward-related processes

In our previous work, it has been established that the basolateral amygdala and ventral striatum are part of a neural system that is involved in reward-related processes. However, it is unclear how information processed in this limbic-motor interface may come to affect incentive motivational responses. The present experiments have investigated the involvement of post-striatal elements of the ventral striatopallidal system in the rat. Lesions of the anterior or posterior domains of the ventral pallidum, which receives the major outflow from the ventral striatum, or the nucleus medialis dorsalis of the thalamus, which receives projections from both the ventral pallidum and also the basolateral amygdala, were made by infusing the excitotoxin, ibotenic acid. The effects of the lesions on the acquisition of a place preference conditioned by exposure of hungry rats to sucrose were then measured. Lesions of either the anterior or posterior ventral pallidum significantly attenuated, whereas lesions of the medial dorsal thalamus completely abolished, the acquisition of a conditioned place preference, provided that the latter lesions included the medial-lateral extent of the nucleus. Medial dorsal thalamic lesions did not damage the stria medullaris or medial habenula. Ingestion of sucrose following 23 h deprivation was unaffected by either ventral pallidal or medial dorsal thalamus lesions and thus disruption of place preference acquisition was not secondary to changes in primary motivation. The results indicate that reward-related processes, as measured in the place preference conditioning paradigm, may depend upon ventral striatopallidal outflow that engages medial dorsal thalamus-frontal cortex mechanisms, in addition to the previously highlighted direct outflow to brainstem elements of the motor system.

Diencephalic Noradrenaline Depletion Impairs the Corticosterone Response to Footshock but does not Affect Conditioned Fear

This study tested the hypothesis that hypothalamic noradrenaline (NA) depletion induced by 6-hydroxydopamine alters neuroendocrine, but not behavioural, responses to aversive stimuli. Sham-operated and NA depleted rats were exposed to pairings of an auditory (clicker) CS and (footshock) US in a distinctive environment. Subjects were tested for preference of a 'safe' environment over the one in which they were shocked, as a measure of effective conditioning to the contextual stimuli present in the distinctive environment. Subjects were also tested, in a separate operant chamber, for the suppression of drinking in the presence of the auditory stimulus, as a measure of effective conditioning to the explicit auditory CS. Blood samples were collected immediately following each phase of the behavioural experiment and were later analysed for plasma Corticosterone concentration. Behavioural and Corticosterone responses of individual control animals to the CS were positively correlated, consistent with previous results. This correlation was not present in the NA depleted group. The lesioned rats also showed a severely attenuated Corticosterone response to the footshock US. By contrast, NA depletion had no effect on any behavioural measure of CS or contextual conditioning. Together with previous experiments, these results suggest that diencephalic NA projections are more likely to mediate neuroendocrine, and coeruleo-cortical NA projections are more likely to mediate behavioural responses to conditioned and unconditioned aversive stimuli.