Bilaterally recorded multiple-unit activity of the cingulate cortex during head turning conditioning with unilateral medial forebrain bundle stimulation.

Cats were conditioned to turn their heads using a tone conditioned stimulus (CS) and medial forebrain bundle stimulation (MFB) unconditioned stimulus (US). The CS+ was delivered to one ear at a time, in random order, followed by the US. A tone of a different frequency was used as a CS-. The cats learned to respond differentially to the CSs showing head movements of greater acceleration to the CS+ than CS- over sessions. Bilateral recordings of cingulate cortex multiple-unit activity showed increased response amplitudes over sessions and larger responses in the hemisphere ipsilateral to the US. Since ipsilateral multiple-unit responses did not differ for the CSs, the asymmetry was probably d…

Effects of medical forebrain bundle stimulation on classical trace and delayed eyeblink conditioning

Behavioral and hippocampal evoked responses in an auditory oddball situation when an unconditioned stimulus is paired with deviant tones in the cat: Experiment II

Event-related potentials (ERP) in the areas CA1, CA3 and dentate fascia (Df) of the hippocampal formation were recorded during an oddball situation in the cat. A rewarding electrical stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus (US) was paired with deviant tones (2500 Hz) that occurred randomly in a series of the standard tones (2000 Hz) given to the left ear. In addition to developing orienting head movements to the side of the deviant tones, an increase in the amplitude of parallel hippocampal ERPs was observed. Both the behavioral and neural responses appeared not until a 50 ms latency range. Furthermore, time-amplitude characteristics of the ERPs corresponded to time-acceleration characteris…

ERPs to pitch changes: a result of reduced responses to standard tones in rabbits.

EVENT-RELATED potentials (ERPs) were recorded in rabbits when pitch deviant tones occurred in a series of standard tones (oddball situation). In control recordings, the deviant tones were presented without the standard tones (deviant-alone situation). In the oddball situation, significant difference ERPs (deviant ERPs - standard ERPs) could be found in the hippocampal and cerebellar recordings but not in the visual cortex. All the ERPs to the deviant stimuli observed in the oddball situation were also present in the deviant-alone situation. The difference ERPs were therefore based on reduced responses to the standards. The results are discussed in the context of a mismatch negativity (MMN) …

Hippocampal responses to pitch deviant tones in rabbits

A simple windows program for coding fast-changing events in observational situations divided into variable intervals

Hippocampal evoked potentials to pitch deviances in an auditory oddball situation in the rabbit: no human mismatch-like dependence on standard stimuli.

Hippocampal auditory evoked potentials (AEP) were recorded in 10 rabbits when pitch deviant tones occurred in a series of standard tones (oddball situation). In control recordings, deviant tones were presented without intervening standard tones (deviant-alone situation). All AEP deflections observed in the oddball situation were found also in the deviant-alone situation. Thus, it appeared that none of the AEP deflections to deviant tones in the oddball situation was specific to a memory trace of preceding standard tones. This observation was in contradiction to such a specificity of the mismatch negativity (MMN) found in humans. Instead, a connection to a neuronal orienting reaction interpr…

Evidence of the origin of specific spontaneous head turns during intertrial intervals.

Direction and the frequency of spontaneous head movements during the ITIs following forward and backward paired trials were compared to an acquisition of a conditioned orienting (alpha) response directed to the side of the tone source. The head movements were analyzed from video recordings using classification of head turns to preferred and to nonpreferred directions. The results showed a significant increase in the alpha responses during the forward paired conditioning to the preferred direction and rapid extinction during the subsequent backward conditioning sessions. Spontaneous head movements during the ITIs increased to the same preferred direction as the conditioned alpha responses. T…

Hippocampal event-related potentials to pitch deviances in an auditory oddball situation in the cat: experiment I.

Hippocampal event-related potentials (ERP) in the areas CA1, CA3, and dentate fascia (Df) were recorded in cats during an oddball situation when pitch deviant tones occurred in a series of standard tones. When difference waves were calculated by subtracting ERPs to the standard tones from those to the deviant tones, no clear N40d, corresponding to a cat analogue of the human mismatch negativity (MMN) observed in earlier studies, could be detected. Instead, a prominent later negativity (N130d) was observed. A possible extra-hippocampal source of the process reflected by the MMN-like negativity, and a relation between an orienting response (OR) and the N130d are discussed.

The effect of rewarding hypothalamic stimulation on behavioral and neural hippocampal responses during trace eyeblink conditioning in rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

Rabbits were trace-conditioned with a tone as a conditioned stimulus and an airpuff as an unconditioned stimulus. Electrical stimulation to the medial forebrain bundle in the lateral hypothalamus was delivered either before or after the tone-airpuff pair. The purpose of the present study was to test whether the effect of post-trial hypothalamic stimulation differed from the effect of pre-trial hypothalamic stimulation on trace conditioning in the same subjects. Additionally, hippocampal responses were measured during sessions to see if hypothalamic stimulation activated dopaminergic fibres and affected hippocampal cell functioning and thus learning. The results showed that behavioral nictit…

Effects of rewarding electrical stimulation of lateral hypothalamus on classical conditioning of the nictitating membrane response.

1. Adult New Zealand albino rabbits were prepared with chronic hypothalamic stimulating electrodes and hippocampal recording electrodes. 2. Rabbits were restrained and classically conditioned by a tone CS and an airpuff US either followed or preceded by a hypothalamic stimulation (HS). Control rabbits were conditioned without the HS. 3. It was found that HS following the CS facilitated both behavioral and hippocampal responses, while HS preceding the CS inhibited them. 4. Enhanced hippocampal learning-related unit firing to the CS may represent an early indication of conditioning before the behavioral activity produces any observable change.

Unilateral medial forebrain bundle activation selectively enhances conditioned orienting head turns and ipsilateral cingulate cortex evoked field responses in cats

Effects of a unilateral medial forebrain bundle (MFB) stimulation unconditioned stimulus (US) on conditioned head turn and bilateral cingulate cortex field potentials were studied in cats. Conditioned stimuli (CSs) of different frequences were given randomly to either ear. The CS+ was followed by the US, and the CS— was presented alone. Before conditioning most cats predominantly turned toward the ear to which the CSs were presented, whereas after conditioning the head turns were in one direction, most prominently contralateral to the US. Negative field potentials were greater in the cingulate cortex ipsilateral to the US than in the cingulate cortex contralateral to the US. Cross correlati…

Multiple-unit responses to pitch changes in rabbits

Multiple-unit activity (MUA) was recorded from the hippocampus (Hc), the visual cortex (VCx) and the cerebellar cortex (CerCx) in rabbits when pitch deviant tones were presented in a series of standard tones (oddball situation) and when standard tones were absent (deviant-alone situation). Significant MMN-like responses (deviant responses minus standard responses in the oddball situation) occurred in Hc, reflecting a MUA increase to the standards and its decrease to the deviants. In accordance with parallel ERPs reported earlier, the MMN-like responses reflected responses only to different presentation frequencies of stimuli. Non-selectivity in the pitch of such responses in VCx and a lack …