Behavioral neuroscience最新文献

Gonadal hormones (e.g., estradiol and progesterone) influence response to, and preference for, drugs in females; however, how hormonal contraceptives, synthetic hormones that decrease gonadal hormone levels, affect drug preference is not known. The current experiment investigated whether oral administration of levonorgestrel (LNG), a synthetic progestin used in hormonal contraceptives, would lead to a reduction in amphetamine (AMPH) preference. Female rats were tested for their AMPH preference over 3 days (which also served as extinction sessions) after receiving oral administration of LNG (250 μg, 500 μg, or 2 mg) or during an estrous cycle stage associated with higher levels of gonadal hormones (i.e., proestrus/estrus). Our results show that AMPH preference was reduced for females on 500 μg and 2 mg of LNG across extinction sessions. Interestingly, only the 2 mg LNG dose led to a disruption in the naturally occurring estrous cycle. Uterine horn width, an index of estrogen exposure, was decreased in all LNG groups, but only the 500 μg and 2 mg LNG groups showed suppression of gonadal hormones, suggesting that both doses are sufficient for contraceptive use in rats. Our study demonstrates an effective and noninvasive oral LNG administration method in a rat model and further shows reduced AMPH preference by LNG. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Gaze is one of the primary experimental measures for studying cognitive development, especially in preverbal infants. However, the field is only beginning to develop a principled explanatory framework for making sense of the various factors affecting gaze. We approach this issue by addressing infant gaze from first principles, using rational information gathering. In particular, we revisit the influential descriptive account of Hunter and Ames (1988), which posits a set of regularities argued to govern how gaze preference for a stimulus changes with experience and other factors. When the Hunter and Ames's (1988) model is reconsidered from the perspective of rational information gathering (as recently also proposed by other authors), one feature of the model emerges as surprising: that preference for a stimulus is not monotonic with exposure. This claim, which has at least some empirical support, is in contrast to most statistical measures of informativeness, which strictly decline with experience. We present a normative, computational theory of visual exploration that rationalizes this and other features of the classic account. Our account suggests that Hunter and Ames's (1988) signature nonmonotonic pattern is a direct manifestation of a ubiquitous principle of the value of information in sequential tasks, other consequences of which have recently been observed in a range of settings including deliberation, exploration, curiosity, and boredom. This is that the value of information gathering, putatively driving gaze, depends on the interplay of a stimulus' informativeness (called gain, the focus of other rationally motivated accounts) with a second factor (called need) reflecting the estimated chance that information will be used in the future. This computational decomposition draws new connections between infant gaze and other cases of exploration, and offers novel, quantitative interpretations and predictions about the factors that may impact infant exploratory attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Environmental threats are typically encountered when animals are searching for food and other necessities. Adaptive behavior must balance competition between fear behavior and reward seeking. We gave rats local neuronal deletions of the ventral pallidum (VP) or specifically deleted paraventricular thalamic nucleus (PVT) neurons projecting directly to the VP. Rats were then assessed in a conditioned suppression procedure in which cues predicting unique foot shock probabilities were presented during, but independent from, reward seeking. Foot shock introduction generally suppressed reward seeking in rats, and recovery from shock introduction was facilitated in rats with VP or PVT → VP pathway deletions. Discriminative fear was observed in controls, and this fear responding reduced over a single extinction session. VP deletion enhanced extinction fear responding, and PVT → VP pathway deletion abolished within-session fear reductions. The results demonstrate the VP and its inputs from the PVT shape reward seeking in threat settings and govern fear extinction responding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Evidence has shown that sex differences affect the symptoms and the response to treatments in neuropsychiatric disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Extinction, as a therapeutic method, and reinstatement, as a method that facilitates shock-related memory retrieval, may also be affected by sex differences; however, evidence is sparse. The present study aimed to explore the potential role of sex differences in the effect of extinction and reinstatement on behavioral functions in a rat model of PTSD. Fear learning was induced by three consecutive footshocks (0.8 mA, 3 s, paired with three sounds) on Day 1. Extinction training (20 sounds without footshock) was done 1 hr and 24 hr after footshocks. Reinstatement was done on Day 3, or 10, or 20, or 30, by placing rat in a new context and delivering one footshock (0.8 mA, 3 s, no sound). Results showed that females were more responsive to extinction due to significant decreases in freezing behavior in comparison with males, while reinstatement had more effect to recall shock-related memory in males. Pain threshold was increased and extinction decreased it in both sexes. Locomotion was decreased in fear conditioning group in both sexes and in PTSD + extinction males, while it was not changed in PTSD + extinction females. Reinstatement on Day 3 decreased locomotion in males. Rearing was decreased and extinction restored it in both sexes. By contrast, reinstatement on Day 3 decreased rearing in males. In conclusion, we suggested that females are more responsive to extinction and less sensitive to reinstatement. On the contrary, males are sensitive to reinstatement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This study investigated whether 221 undergraduates (123 males, 98 females) with varying levels of cannabis use displayed a conditioned place preference (CPP) for a virtual reality (VR) room that previously contained virtual cannabis stimuli compared to a neutral VR room that was not paired with cannabis cues. We hypothesized that cannabis-using participants (n = 180) would spend a greater amount of time in, report greater subjective enjoyment in, and explicitly prefer a VR room that was previously paired with virtual cannabis stimuli relative to a neutral room, while participants with nonuse (n = 41) would not. Overall, participants did not demonstrate an implicit or explicit CPP for a VR room that was previously paired with cannabis cues. Interestingly, however, participants with recent cannabis use (n = 41) exhibited a significant implicit CPP for the cannabis-cue-paired VR room, while participants with nonrecent cannabis use (n = 113) did not. Furthermore, relative to males with cannabis use (n = 93), females with cannabis use (n = 87) demonstrated a significant explicit CPP for the cannabis-cue-paired context as well as significantly greater cannabis cravings. These findings elucidate the need for further research on the role of acute cannabis intoxication, sex, and cue-induced cravings in modulating CPP for cannabis-associated contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The ability to engage in everyday tasks, such as walking, requires the integration of cognitive and motor processes. How these processes integrate may be discernable through the relation of brain activity patterns to behavioral performance, particularly in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), examination of which has been restricted because of the limitations in experimental design. We related behavior (cognition, walking) to brain activity, as measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy, under dual-task conditions (cognition while walking) in healthy young adults. Our probe design enabled us to examine eight regions of interest across PFC and motor cortex to identify key areas related to behavior. Healthy young adults (N = 19) engaged in standing cognition (Serial 3 subtraction), single-task walking, and dual-task walking. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to identify regions associated with increases or decreases in activity under dual-task relative to the other conditions. We observed differences in brain activity patterns by task across multiple regions of interest, mostly in PFC. Specifically, more lateral regions were related to attention-demanding tasks, whereas motor tasks were related to relatively medial regions. Our results relate behavior to brain activity, as measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy, under dual-task conditions. Our finding of relatively lateral PFC activity during attention-demanding tasks provides insights into behavioral and brain processes during experimental analogues of everyday activity, bringing us closer to understanding behavior-brain relations in the real world. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP, ADCYAP1) is a highly conserved neuropeptide that plays essential roles in numerous physiological functions, and central PACAP signaling has been associated with mechanisms regulating stress-induced psychopathologies. PACAP binds to several receptor subtypes, including PAC1 (ADCYAP1R1), VPAC1 (VIPR1), and VPAC2 (VIPR2), to activate several signaling cascades that can alter neuronal excitability and enhance indices of neuroplasticity, and much of our prior work has suggested that the anxiogenic effects of bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) PACAP depend on the activation of PAC1 receptors. To complement our previous work that evaluated the roles of BNST PACAP expression and secretion in anxiety-related responses, we employed in the current work chemogenetic approaches in male PAC1-Ires-Cre mice to directly and specifically modulate the activities of BNST PAC1 receptor-expressing neurons. Inhibition of BNST PAC1 receptor neuron activity with clozapine-N-oxide significantly increased open arm exploration without reducing total locomotor activity; conversely, stimulating BNST PAC1 receptor function significantly reduced open arm exploratory activities. In sum, these data are consistent with our prior work suggesting a key role for BNST PACAP receptor activation in anxiety and stress; further, these observations importantly clarify the neural circuits involved in anxiety-like behaviors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

A series of experiments tested the role of sex and cycling ovarian hormones in the renewal of conditioned freezing after either extinction or counterconditioning. In all experiments, conditioning occurred in Context A, response reduction (extinction or counterconditioning) occurred in Context B, and renewal occurred in a familiar yet neutral Context C. Experiment 1a compared renewal after extinction for male and female rats. Both groups demonstrated robust renewal. This finding was replicated in Experiment 1b, which also included a group of ovariectomized female rats to test a potential role of cycling ovarian hormones. Renewal was present and did not differ between groups. Experiment 2 extended these findings to examine renewal after aversive-to-appetitive counterconditioning. Once again, renewal did not differ between male and female rats (Experiment 2a), nor between male, intact female, and ovariectomized female rats (Experiment 2b). For all experiments, summation testing failed to detect differential context-U.S. associations between Contexts B and C. We discuss the role for cycling ovarian hormones in renewal, noting methodological differences with prior studies, and we also discuss how contexts can influence behavior during either extinction or counterconditioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) has been preliminarily investigated as a potential treatment for dementia. The degeneration of NBM cholinergic neurons is a pathological feature of many forms of dementia. Although NBM stimulation has been demonstrated to improve learning, the ideal parameters for NBM stimulation have not been elucidated. This study assesses the differential effects of varying stimulation patterns and duration on learning in a dementia rat model with cholinergic deficits. 192-IgG saporin (SAP) or Dulbecco's phosphate buffered saline was injected into the NBM to produce dementia in rats. Next, all rats underwent unilateral implantation of a DBS electrode in the NBM. The experimental groups consisted of (a) normal, (b) untreated SAP-injected rats with cholinergic deficits, and (c) SAP rats receiving NBM DBS. The stimulation paradigms included testing different modes (tonic and burst) and durations (1 hr, 5 hr, and 24 hr/day) over 10 daily sessions. Memory was assessed using two established learning paradigms: novel object recognition and auditory operant chamber learning. Both normal and stimulated rats demonstrated improved performance in novel object recognition and auditory learning as compared to the unstimulated SAP group. The burst stimulation groups performed better than the tonic group. Increasing the daily stimulation duration to 24 hr did not further improve cognitive performance in an auditory recognition task and degraded the results on a novel object recognition task as compared with 5 hr. The present findings suggest that naturalistic NBM burst DBS may offer potential effective therapy for treating dementia and suggests potential strategies for the reevaluation of current human NBM stimulation paradigms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is critical for learning and decision making, but its organization in terms of anatomical connections to other brain areas is not well understood in humans. Here we used diffusion magnetic resonance imaging and probabilistic tractography to characterize the cortical and subcortical white matter connections of the human OFC. We found widespread connectivity of the OFC with frontal and temporal cortices, anterior cingulate, insula, olfactory cortex, as well as the striatum, hippocampus, amygdala, and thalamic nuclei. We then used k-means clustering to parcellate the OFC into different subregions based on these connections, revealing a medial-lateral division with two clusters, and a separation into medial, lateral-anterior, and lateral-posterior subdivisions with three clusters. Higher order parcellations revealed more complex subdivisions mirroring cytoarchitectural boundaries of the primate OFC. Analysis of the white matter connectivity of the medial and lateral OFC clusters revealed differences in their connectivity patterns with frontal cortices, insula, olfactory cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, as well as the striatum and several thalamic nuclei. In addition, lateral-anterior and lateral-posterior OFC clusters showed different connectivity strengths with several frontal cortices, anterior cingulate cortex, insula, and the caudate. These findings suggest parallels between the anatomical organization of the human and macaque OFC and may help to elucidate how the OFC contributes to adaptive behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).