Reward, attention and the dorsal noradrenergic bundle.

Journal article

The resistance to extinction seen after lesion to the dorsal noradrenergic bundle has been suggested to arise from a deficit in internal inhibition or a 'perseverative' type of deficit. This hypothesis is tested by examining the ability of 6-hydroxydopamine-treated animals to inhibit a previously developed preference for saccharine solution as a result of poisoning with lithium chloride. Unimpaired taste aversion is found, arguing against a deficit in the ability to inhibit a prepotent response. An alternative explanation of the dorsal bundle extinction effect (DBEE), that of alterations in attention, is tested by acquisition and reversal of a successive light-dark discrimination. Both acquisition and reversal are severely impaired, suggesting that the treated animals have difficulty in attending to a specific stimulus in the environment when this is required in order to structure behaviour appropriately, and thus being consistent with a role for the dorsal bundle in the control of attentional processes.

Authors: Mason, S; Iversen, S

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: Brain research
• Volume: 150
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 135-148
• Publication date: 1978-07-01
• DOI: 10.1016/0006-8993(78)90658-3
• EISSN: 1872-6240
• ISSN: 0006-8993
• Language: English
• Keywords: Male; Extinction, Psychological; Discrimination Learning; Adrenergic Fibers; Attention; Animals; Reward; Hippocampus; Visual Perception; Avoidance Learning; Locus Coeruleus; Rats; Telencephalon; Dopamine; Neural Pathways; Hypothalamus; Neural Inhibition; Norepinephrine