Investigating the Neural Substrates of Relapse Behavior

ISBN-13: 9783639168679 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 84 str.

Russell Frohardt

Opis

Reinstatement occurs when exposure to theunconditioned stimulus alone (i.e., contextconditioning), after extinction, causes a recovery of responding to the conditioned stimulus. This model isfrequently used as a research model of relapse forthe treatment of drug abuse and anxiety disorders.Reinstatement of conditioned fear has been shown to depend on the hippocampal formation. Thehippocampal formation has also been implicated in theacquisition and expression of contextual freezing.Two experiments examined the role of the hippocampus and two of its efferent targets, the bednucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) and nucleusaccumbens, in two protocols for creating contextualfreezing, and the reinstatement of conditioned fear in rats. The results of these experiments suggestthat hippocampal-BST neural circuitry is criticallyinvolved in the reinstatement effect and the production of a state that is more like anxietythan fear.

O autorze

Russ Frohardt is currently an Associate Professor and the Chair
of Psychology at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. His
research interests include learning and memory, spatial
navigation, and female sexual behavior. He collaborates with his
students, his wife, Fay Guarraci at Southwestern University, her
students, and other colleagues.