Immediate shock deficit in fear conditioning: effects of shock manipulations.

Full Abstract

Pavlovian contextual fear conditioning occurs when an aversive unconditional stimulus (US), such as a footshock, is presented to a rat shortly after it is placed in an experimental context. Contextual fear conditioning does not occur when the shock is presented immediately upon placement of the rat in the novel chamber. In the present study, the authors report that increasing either the number of immediate shock sessions (Experiment 1) or the immediate shock duration (Experiment 2) did not reverse this deficit. However, immediate shock seems to sensitize subsequent context conditioning (Experiment 3). These findings suggest that the associative deficit produced by immediate shock is not related to the rat's ability to process the footshock US.Copyright 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

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Author information

Author/s: Landeira-Fernandez, J (J); DeCola, Joseph P (JP); Kim, Jeansok J (JJ); Fanselow, Michael S (MS);

Affiliation: Departamento de Psicologia, Pontificia Universidade Catolico do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. landeira(-atsign-)psi.puc-rio.br

Grants: R01 MH62122 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Journal: Behavioral neuroscience (Behav Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Aug; vol 120 (issue 4) : pp 873-9

Dates: Created 2006/08/08; Completed 2006/09/28; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 16893293, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Animals
Behavior, Animal
Conditioning, Classical - physiology
Electroshock - methods
Fear
Freezing Reaction, Cataleptic - physiology
Male

Male
Perceptual Disorders
Random Allocation
Rats
Rats, Long-Evans
Shock - psychology
Time Factors

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