The dopamine system has been implicated in decision-making particularly when associated with effortful behavior. We examined acute optogenetic stimulation of dopamine cells in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) as mice engaged in an effort-based decision-making task. Tyrosine hydroxylase-Cre mice were injected with Cre-dependent ChR2 or eYFP control…

Strong evidence supports a role for protein degradation in fear memory formation. However, these data have been largely done in only male animals. Here, we found that following contextual fear conditioning, females, but not males, had increased levels of proteasome activity and K48 polyubiquitin protein targeting in the dorsal hippocampus, the…

In two instrumental conditioning experiments with rats, we examined the impacts of acquisition and extinction cues on ABC renewal of instrumental behavior. Animals were reinforced with food for lever pressing in one context, followed by extinction of the response in a second one. Presentations of a brief tone accompanied extinction in Experiment 1…

Early life stress (ELS) experiences can cause changes in cognitive and affective functioning. This study examined the persistent effects of a single traumatic event in infancy on several adult behavioral outcomes in male and female C57BL/6J mice. Mice received 15 footshocks in infancy and were tested for stress-enhanced fear learning, extinction…

Discrimination of sensory signals is essential for an organism to form and retrieve memories of relevance in a given behavioral context. Sensory representations are modified dynamically by changes in behavioral state, facilitating context-dependent selection of behavior, through signals carried by noradrenergic input in mammals, or octopamine (OA)…

This paper examines recent evidence from behavioral and neuroscience research with nonhuman animals that suggests the intriguing possibility that they, like their human counterparts, are vulnerable to creating false memories. Once considered a uniquely human memory phenomenon, the creation of false memories in lower animals can be seen especially…

Behavioral flexibility is important in a changing environment. Previous research suggests that systems consolidation, a long-term poststorage process that alters memory traces, may reduce behavioral flexibility. However, exactly how systems consolidation affects flexibility is unknown. Here, we tested how systems consolidation affects: (1)…

Protein kinase M[zeta] (PKM[zeta]) maintains long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term memory through persistent increases in kinase expression. Early-life adversity is a precursor to adult mood and anxiety disorders, in part, through persistent disruption of emotional memory throughout life. Here we subjected 10- to 16-wk-old male bonnet…

Motivationally attractive cues can draw in behavior in a phenomenon termed incentive salience. Incentive cue attraction is an important model for animal models of drug seeking and relapse. One question of interest is the extent to which the pursuit of motivationally attractive cues is related to the value of the paired outcome or can become…

Animals in a natural environment confront many sensory cues. Some of these cues bias behavioral decisions independent of experience, and action selection can reveal a stimulus-response (S-R) connection. However, in a changing environment it would be a benefit for an animal to update behavioral action selection based on experience, and learning…

Working memory (WM), the capacity for short-term storage of small quantities of information for immediate use, is thought to depend on activity within the prefrontal cortex. Recent evidence indicates that the prefrontal neuronal activity supporting WM is driven by thalamocortical connections arising in mediodorsal thalamus (mdThal). However, the…

We present evidence that experience and cholinergic modulation in an early sensory network interact to improve certainty about olfactory stimuli. The data we present are in agreement with existing theoretical ideas about the functional role of acetylcholine but highlight the importance of early sensory networks in addition to cortical networks. We…

Recent studies have shown that exposure to a novel environment may stabilize the persistence of weak memories, a phenomenon often attributed to a process referred to as "behavioral tagging." While this phenomenon has been repeatedly demonstrated in adult animals, no studies to date have examined whether it occurs in infant animals, which…

Studies have shown that neonate rodents exhibit high ability to learn a preference for novel odors associated with thermo-tactile stimuli that mimics maternal care. Artificial odors paired with vigorous strokes in rat pups younger than 10 postnatal days (P), but not older, rapidly induce an orientation-approximation behavior toward the conditioned…

Fluctuations in neural activity can produce states that facilitate and accelerate task-related performance. Acquisition of trace eyeblink conditioning (tEBC) in the rabbit is enhanced when trials are contingent on optimal pretrial activity in the hippocampus. Other regions which are essential for whisker-signaled tEBC, such as the cerebellar…