Lesion studies indicate that rats without the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) have difficulty recalling fear extinction acquired the previous day. Several electrophysiological studies have also supported this observation by demonstrating that extinction-related increases in neuronal activity in the mPFC participate in expression of fear…

The terrestrial slug "Limax" has a highly developed ability to associate the odor of some foods (e.g., carrot juice) with aversive stimuli such as the bitter taste of quinidine solution. The procerebrum (PC) is a part of the slug's brain thought to be involved in odor-aversion learning, but direct evidence is still lacking. Here, the authors…

The persistence of new memory traces in the hippocampus, encoded following appropriate activation of glutamatergic receptors and the induction of synaptic plasticity, can be influenced by heterosynaptic activation of neuromodulatory brain systems. We therefore investigated the effects of a hippocampus-specific blockade of dopamine D1/D5 receptors…

This document describes a game that provides students with practice in learning vocabulary and concepts associated with wolves. Directions for play and play cards (four to a page) are included. (ASK)

This brief statement supports more research on the linguistic and cognitive abilities of animals, particularly primates, and sees direct applicability of such research to language learning by humans with mental retardation who have not learned to speak. (DB)

Investigates children's knowledge about animals by examining the mental models they reveal through their talk when they see animal representations. Presents a study in which representations were provided by robotic models in a museum, preserved animals in a museum, and preserved animals borrowed from a museum and presented in a school setting.…

It is often said that a dog is a best friend. In fact, after cattle, dogs are the oldest domesticated animals. Dogs have lived with humans for over 10,000 years and have been selectively bred for various types of domestication. Domesticated dogs have performed many roles in society throughout history-rescue dogs, hunting dogs, guide dogs, and…

Decreases in behavioral investigation of novel stimuli over time may be mediated by a variety of factors including changes in attention, internal state, and motivation. Sensory cortical adaptation, a decrease in sensory cortical responsiveness over prolonged stimulation, may also play a role. In olfaction, metabotropic glutamate receptors on…

The sunk cost effect is the increased tendency to persist in an endeavor once an investment of money, effort, or time has been made. To date, humans are the only animal in which this effect has been observed unambiguously. We developed a behavior-analytic model of the sunk cost effect to explore the potential for this behavior in pigeons as well…

Four rats responded under a "self-control" procedure designed to obtain delay- discount functions within sessions. Each session consisted of seven blocks, with seven trials within each block. Each block consisted of two initial forced- choice trials followed by five free-choice trials. On choice trials, the rats could press either of two…

Previous experiments have shown that unsignaled delayed reinforcement decreases response rates and resistance to change. However, the effects of different delays to reinforcement on underlying response structure have not been investigated in conjunction with tests of resistance to change. In the present experiment, pigeons responded on a…

The cAMP/PKA pathway plays a critical role in learning and memory systems in animals ranging from mice to "Drosophila" to "Aplysia." Studies of olfactory learning in "Drosophila" suggest that altered expression of either positive or negative regulators of the cAMP/PKA signaling pathway beyond a certain optimum range may be deleterious. Here we…

Remote laboratories can provide distant learners with practical acquisitions which would otherwise remain precluded. Our proposal here is a remote laboratory on a behavioural test (open field test), with the aim of introducing learners to the observation and analysis of stereotyped behaviour in animals. A real-time video of a mouse in an…

The focus of this manual is the timber wolf and its experience in the United States. The activities are designed to enable students to gain a factual understanding of the timber wolf, question any misinformation they have learned regarding wolves, and learn to appreciate the wolf as a creature of nature rather than fear it as a creature of fairy…

Within-session delay-of-reinforcement gradients were generated with pigeons by progressively increasing delays to reinforcement within each session. In Experiment 1, the effects of imposing progressive delays on variable-interval and fixed-interval schedules were investigated while controlling for simultaneous decreases in reinforcer rate across…