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| Research article summary (published 18 May 2009): |
A role for medial prefrontal dopaminergic innervation in instrumental conditioning.
Full Abstract
To investigate the involvement of dopaminergic projections to the prelimbic and infralimbic cortex in the control of goal-directed responses, a first experiment examined the effect of pretraining 6-OHDA lesions of these cortices. We used outcome devaluation and contingency degradation procedures to separately assess the representation of the outcome as a goal or the encoding of the contingency between the action and its outcome. All groups acquired the instrumental response at a normal rate, indicating that dopaminergic activity in the medial prefrontal cortex is not necessary for the acquisition of instrumental learning. Sham-operated animals showed sensitivity to both outcome devaluation and contingency degradation. Animals with dopaminergic lesions of the prelimbic cortex, but not the infralimbic cortex, failed to adapt their instrumental response to changes in contingency, whereas their response remained sensitive to outcome devaluation. In a second experiment, aimed at determining whether dopamine was specifically needed during contingency changes, we performed microinfusions of the dopamine D(1)/D(2) receptor antagonist flupenthixol in the prelimbic cortex only before contingency degradation sessions. Animals with infusions of flupenthixol failed to adapt their response to changes in contingency, thus replicating the deficit of animals with dopaminergic lesions in Experiment 1. These results demonstrate that dissociable neurobiological mechanisms support action-outcome relationships and goal representation, dopamine signaling in the prelimbic cortex being necessary for the former but not the latter.
Author information
Author/s: Naneix, Fabien (F); Marchand, Alain R (AR); Di Scala, Georges (G); Pape, Jean-Rémi (JR); Coutureau, Etienne (E);
Affiliation: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Université de Bordeaux, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5228, Talence F-33405, France.
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Journal: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience (J Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2009-May; vol 29 (issue 20) : pp 6599-606
Dates: Created 2009/05/21; Completed 2009/06/08;
PMID: 19458230, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 6/8/2009, IMS Date: )
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
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