Vasopressin in the lateral septum promotes elemental conditioning to the detriment of contextual fear conditioning in mice.
European Journal of Neuroscience. 1999-11-01; 11(11): 3913-3921
DOI: 10.1046/j.1460-9568.1999.00815.x
Lire sur PubMed
Previous experiments using a classical fear conditioning paradigm have provided
evidence that the processing of contextual conditional stimuli (CSs) by the
hippocampus would be controlled by the amygdala through a modulation of
hippocampal-lateral septal (H-LS) excitability. More specifically, our suggestion
was that vasopressin release into the LS would occur in an elemental conditioning
case [pairing CS-US (unconditional stimulus) procedure] and would result in less
hippocampal-dependent contextual stimuli processing (i.e. overshadowing of CSs by
the simple CS). Conversely, when an unpairing CS-US procedure is used, this would
result in more contextual stimuli processing through a decrease in vasopressin
release into the LS. The aim of the present experiment was to test this
hypothesis using intraseptal injection of vasopressin or its V1/V2 antagonist. In
agreement with this hypothesis, results suggest that vasopressin release into the
LS would constitute a device by which priority is given to the more salient
simple stimulus to the detriment of contextual information.