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Full-Text Articles in Biological Psychology
Experience-Dependent Changes In Nucleus Accumbens Activity Predict Cued Approach Learning: Contribution Of Nmda Receptors, Mercedes Vega Villar
Experience-Dependent Changes In Nucleus Accumbens Activity Predict Cued Approach Learning: Contribution Of Nmda Receptors, Mercedes Vega Villar
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Animals learn associations between environmental cues and the natural rewards they predict (e.g., food, water, sex). As a result, reward-predictive cues come to trigger vigorous reward-seeking responses. Many neurons in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) become excited upon presentation of an already-learned reward-predictive cue. These NAc responses encode the motivational value of the cue and are necessary for the expression of the subsequent approach behavior. However, the precise temporal relationship between the emergence of cue-evoked excitations in the NAc and the acquisition of cued approach behavior remains unknown. In Experiment 1, NAc activity was recorded as rats learned to approach a …
Ketamine Pre-Exposure Does Not Influence Later-Life Responses To Reward-Related Stimuli In Female C57bl/6 Mice, Israel Garcia
Ketamine Pre-Exposure Does Not Influence Later-Life Responses To Reward-Related Stimuli In Female C57bl/6 Mice, Israel Garcia
Open Access Theses & Dissertations
Preclinical work indicates that exposure to traditional antidepressant medications, in adolescent and adult female subjects, alters reward-related behavior later in life. In recent years, the anesthetic ketamine (KET), now used as a fast-acting antidepressant, has shown promising therapeutic efficacy for the management of depression. However, the potential long-term behavioral consequences of KET exposure across development have not been thoroughly assessed. Thus, to address this issue, we examined if KET exposure, during adolescence or early adulthood, results in enduring alterations in responsivity to the rewarding properties of sucrose and cocaine later in life. Specifically, female C57BL/6 mice were randomly assigned to …
Age, Access, And Sweets-Motivation, Gehan Senthinathan
Age, Access, And Sweets-Motivation, Gehan Senthinathan
Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)
Availability can have profound influence on the consumption of foods and drinks. The 2-phase intermittent-continuous protocol (ICP) examines sucrose solution intake in two groups of rats and finds intermittent access significantly increases intake. In Phase I, rats receive intermittent or continuous access to a 4% sucrose solution, and with adults this results in a long-term elevation (a doubling) in the intermittent group. In Phase II, when rats are shifted to common sucrose schedule, this difference is maintained. Adult rats given 16% sucrose in Phase I do not differ in consumption, but in Phase II with 4% sucrose, an unexpressed elevation …