Basolateral amygdala nucleus responses to appetitive conditioned stimuli correlate with variations in conditioned behaviour.

Seung-Chan Lee,Alon Amir,Denis Pare,Drew B Headley,Darrell Haufler

doi:10.1038/ncomms12275

Seung-Chan Lee, Alon Amir + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12275

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Abstract

In the lateral amygdala (LA), training-induced increases in neuronal responsiveness to conditioned stimuli (CSs) reflect potentiated sensory responses that drive conditioned behaviours (CRs) via LA's targets. The basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BL) receives LA inputs and projects to various subcortical sites that can drive aversive and appetitive CRs. Consistent with this, BL neurons also develop increased responses to CSs that predict rewarding or aversive outcomes. This increased BL activity is thought to reflect the potentiated sensory responses of LA neurons. Here we contrast the CS-related activity of BL neurons when rats produced the expected CR or not, to show that cells activated by appetitive CSs mainly encode behavioural output, not CS identity. The strong dependence of BL activity on behaviour irrespective of CS identity suggests that feedforward connectivity from LA to BL can be overridden by other BL inputs.

Highlights

In the lateral amygdala (LA), training-induced increases in neuronal responsiveness to conditioned stimuli (CSs) reflect potentiated sensory responses that drive conditioned behaviours (CRs) via LA’s targets
To test whether the increases in CS-responsiveness induced by conditioning are related to changes in conditioned behaviour or driven by the CS, we recorded basolateral amygdala (BL) neurons (Fig. 1a,b) in rats trained on a mixed appetitive and aversive learning paradigm and contrasted their activity when rats produced the expected CR or not
The present study examined whether basolateral nucleus (BL) neurons always respond to appetitive CSs irrespective of whether CRs are emitted versus whether BL neurons only fire when the CR is emitted

Summary

Introduction

In the lateral amygdala (LA), training-induced increases in neuronal responsiveness to conditioned stimuli (CSs) reflect potentiated sensory responses that drive conditioned behaviours (CRs) via LA’s targets. A recent study revealed that BL activity during foraging is closely linked to behavioural output, not to reward or threat contingencies[35] This finding raises the possibility that the increased CS-responsiveness of BL neurons in conditioning tasks is not directly driven by the potentiated sensory responses of LA neurons, but instead reflects training-induced modifications in behavioural output. According to this view, the enhanced CSresponsiveness observed previously in BL resulted from the increased probability that the CS would elicit a CR after conditioning. The activity of BL neurons mainly encodes behavioural output

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