Contextual modulation of behavioral choice

Multiplexed modulation of behavioral choice.

Stimuli in the environment, as well as internal states, influence behavioral choice. Of course, animals are often exposed to multiple external and internal factors simultaneously, which makes the ultimate determinants of behavior quite complex. We observed the behavioral responses of European leeches, Hirudo verbana, as we varied one external factor (surrounding water depth) with either another...

Modulation of Drosophila male behavioral choice.

The reproductive and defensive behaviors that are initiated in response to specific sensory cues can provide insight into how choices are made between different social behaviors. We manipulated both the activity and sex of a subset of neurons and found significant changes in male social behavior. Results from aggression assays indicate that the neuromodulator octopamine (OCT) is necessary for D...

Contextual and temporal modulation of extinction: behavioral and biological mechanisms.

Extinction depends, at least partly, on new learning that is specific to the context in which it is learned. Several behavioral phenomena (renewal, reinstatement, spontaneous recovery, and rapid reacquisition) suggest the importance of context in extinction. The present article reviews research on the behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms of contextual influences on extinction learning and ...

Contextual Modulation of Target

Behavioral and central correlates of contextual fear learning and contextual modulation of cued fear in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show persistent fear responses to trauma cues in contexts in which these cues no longer predict danger. This might be related to deficient context and enhanced cue conditioning. To test this hypothesis, we examined context conditioning directly followed by a cue conditioning phase against the background of the previously conditioned context in ...