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Pavlovian Conditioning Paper

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Current study focuses on the understanding of Molecular Mechanism of Pavlovian conditioning (PC). Pavlovian conditioning is the reference paradigm for the study of associative learning based on the programmed relation of two stimuli, the conditioned stimulus (CS), a tone, and the unconditioned stimulus (US), sucrose-water. Previous research in rodents has revealed that the limbic circuits (or BLA), play an important role in Pavlovian reward learning. We hypothesize that PC acquisition produces a different memory from PC extinction in the BLA. In this study some of the markers analyzed and measured include: atypical Protein Kinase M ζ (PKMζ), Protein Kinase C ι/λ (PKC ι/λ), AMPA (a-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid) receptor subunits glutamate A1 (GluA1), GluA2 and GluA3.These markers are important for consolidation and retrieval of memory. …show more content…

All rats received 8 sessions of conditioning, during which rats received: (A) Acquisition-stimuli training in which the delivery of a drop of sucrose-water was always present with the CS; (B) Extinction training in which the CS occurred without sucrose-water; or (C) Random-stimuli delivery training, in which the delivery of the CS and reward occur randomly in time. On the following day a non-reinforced test trial was performed with the CS

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