1 National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, Cellular Neurobiology Research Branch, Behavioral Neurophysiology Research Section, 251 Bayview Boulevard, Baltimore, Maryland 21224, USA.
2 Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Maryland, School of Medicine, 20 Penn Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201, USA.
3 Department of Psychology and Centre for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H4B 1R6.
4 Center for Research on Brain, Language, and Music, McGill University, 3640 Rue de la Montagne, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 2A8.
5 Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, the Johns Hopkins Univeristy, Baltimore, Maryland 21287, USA.

Neural correlates of two different types of extinction learning in the amygdala central nucleus.

Nat Commun. 2016 08 17;7:12330

Authors: Iordanova MD, Deroche ML, Esber GR, Schoenbaum G

Abstract

Extinction is a fundamental form of memory updating in which one learns to stop expecting an event that no longer occurs. This learning ensues when one experiences a change in environmental contingencies, that is, when an expected outcome fails to occur (simple extinction), or when a novel inflated expectation of a double outcome (overexpectation) is in conflict with the real outcome, and is a process that has been linked to amygdala function. Here, we show that in rats, the same neuronal population in the amygdala central nucleus updates reward expectancies and behaviour in both types of extinction, and neural changes in one paradigm are reflected in the other. This work may have implications for the management of addiction and anxiety disorders that require treatments based on the outcome omission, and disorders such as obesity that could use overexpectation, but not omission strategies.

PMID: 27531638 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]