Goal-directed responding is sensitive to lesions to the prelimbic cortex or basolateral nucleus of the amygdala but not to their disconnection.

Etienne Coutureau, Alain R. Marchand, Georges Di Scala
Behavioral Neuroscience. 2009-01-01; 123(2): 443-448
DOI: 10.1037/a0014818

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1. Behav Neurosci. 2009 Apr;123(2):443-8. doi: 10.1037/a0014818.

Goal-directed responding is sensitive to lesions to the prelimbic cortex or
basolateral nucleus of the amygdala but not to their disconnection.

Coutureau E(1), Marchand AR, Di Scala G.

Author information:
(1)CNRS, Talence, France.

The current view of instrumental conditioning indicates that performance in the
early stage of training is maintained by a representation of the outcome, as
indexed by its sensitivity to changes in the value of the reward. In the present
study, the authors tested the effects of a disconnection of the prelimbic cortex
(PL) and the basolateral nucleus of the amygdale (BLA), using an asymmetric
lesion procedure, to determine whether these structures interact sequentially as
part of a corticolimbic system. In marked contrast to the effects of bilateral
lesions of the PL or the BLA, which both altered rats’ sensitivity to outcome
devaluation, the disconnection of these 2 brain areas was without an effect on
outcome devaluation. These results demonstrate that the PL and the BLA mediate
different aspects of outcome representation in goal-directed responding.

(c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

DOI: 10.1037/a0014818
PMID: 19331467 [Indexed for MEDLINE]

Auteurs Bordeaux Neurocampus