Experimental brain research. Experimentelle Hirnforschung. Expérimentation cérébrale
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Rabbits given either electrolytic lesions of the entorhinal cortex or sham-lesions were trained to prevent a foot-shock by stepping in an activity wheel after one tone, a positive conditioned stimulus (CS+), and to ignore a different tone, a negative conditioned stimulus (CS-). Neuronal activity was recorded simultaneously in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala, the CA1 cell field of hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortical area 24b and posterior cingulate cortical area 29c/d. The activity of neurons in the entorhinal cortex was recorded in the controls. ⋯ Posterior cingulate cortical neurons in rabbits with lesions showed discriminative activity in both extinction sessions. The results indicated that the entorhinal cortex does not play a significant role in the acquisition of discriminative avoidance behavior, under the employed conditions of training. However, the interactions of neurons in the entorhinal cortex, amygdala and cingulate cortex are essential for contextual modulation of CRs during extinction.