The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is a key brain region for the control of consummatory behavior. Neuronal activity in this area is modulated when rats initiate consummatory licking and reversible inactivations eliminate reward contrast effects and reduce a measure of palatability, the duration of licking bouts. Together, these data suggest the hypothesis that rhythmic neuronal activity in th...

In this issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology, Gutierrez et al. (p. 119–133) show that neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex play a critical role in organizing the consummatory response of licking (Gutierrez et al. 2005). Using both muscimol-induced reversible lesions and single unit ensemble recording, they show that orbitofrontal cortex neurons code the palatability or rewarding properties of...

Numerous behavioral paradigms have been developed to assess tinnitus-like behavior in animals. Nevertheless, they are often limited by prolonged training requirements, as well as an inability to simultaneously assess onset and lasting tinnitus behavior, tinnitus pitch or duration, or tinnitus presence without grouping data from multiple animals or testing sessions. To enhance behavioral testing...

Food-deprived Wistar rats were exposed to a fixed-time (FT) 60-s food delivery schedule until they developed schedule-induced drinking. Rats were matched in pairs according to their licking rates and were designated master or yoked at random. Every fifth lick by master rats was followed by an electric shock during two signalled 5-min periods, which ran concurrently with the food delivery schedu...

Optimizing pain relief resulting from spinal manipulative therapies, including low velocity variable amplitude spinal manipulation (LVVA-SM), requires determining their mechanisms. Pain models that incorporate simulated spinal manipulative therapy treatments are needed for these studies. The antinociceptive effects of a single LVVA-SM treatment on rat nociceptive behavior during the commonly us...

An emerging literature suggests that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is crucial for the ability to track behavioral outcomes over time and has a critical role in successful foraging. Here, we examine this issue by analyzing changes in neuronal spike activity and local field potentials in the rat mPFC in relation to the consumption of rewarding stimuli. Using multi-electrode recording method...

Objective(s) Wound licking has been shown to advance wound healing among humans and many other animals. The present study evaluates the licking effects on healing of skin wound in rats. Materials and Methods Twenty four rats were assigned to 4 different groups randomly and two 3 cm longitudinal full thickness incisions were made on each dorsal and ventral side of rats. The ventral incisions ...

Rabbits may develop a self-injurious behavior and hurt themselves severely. Lactating females can, in turn, hurt their newborn kits by chewing or excessively licking their ears and their limbs. Self-injurious behavior of body regions is observed in rabbits suffering from specific pathologies, in does (adult female rabbits) with a very strong maternal instinct (Figure 1) as well as in individual...

We examined the role of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in reward processing and the control of consummatory behavior. Rats were trained in an operant licking procedure in which they received alternating access to solutions with relatively high and low levels of sucrose (20 and 4%, w/v). Each level of sucrose was available for fixed intervals of 30 s over 30 min test sessions. Over several ...

Purkinje cells (PCs) in the mammalian cerebellum express high-frequency spontaneous activity with average spike rates between 30 and 200 Hz. Cerebellar nuclear (CN) neurons receive converging input from many PCs, resulting in a continuous barrage of inhibitory inputs. It has been hypothesized that pauses in PC activity trigger increases in CN spiking activity. A prediction derived from this hyp...