objective(s) single injection of naloxone, a selective antagonist of morphine, prior to the drug conditioning testing was used to investigate on morphine dependence. materials and methods conditioning to morphine (2.5-10 mg/kg, s.c.) was established in adult male wistar rats (weighing 200-250 g) using an unbiased procedure. nitric oxide agents were microinjected into the central amygdala prior ...

Although the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is known to play a critical role in the formation of memories of both positive and negative valence, the coding and routing of valence-related information is poorly understood. Here, we recorded BLA neurons during the retrieval of associative memories and used optogenetic-mediated phototagging to identify populations of neurons that synapse in the nucleus...

The amygdala is the central component of a functional brain system regulating fear and emotional behaviors. Studies of the ontogeny of fear behaviors reveal the emergence of distinct fear responses at different postnatal ages. Here, we performed a stereological analysis of the rat amygdala to characterize the cellular changes underlying its normal structural development. Distinct amygdala nucle...

BACKGROUND The amygdala is a forebrain region, which is known as a modulator of pain sensation. The amygdala, particularly the central nucleus, has high concentrations of enkephalins relative to dynorphins and has high concentrations of opioid receptors. We here studied the role of central nuclei of amygdala in morphine antinociception. METHODS In this study, we used 130 male Wistar rats (200...

Recent advances in neuroscience give us a better view of the inner structure of the amygdala, of its relations with other regions in the Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL) and of the prominent role of neuromodulation. They have particularly shed light on two kinds of neurons in the basal nucleus of the amygdala, the so-called fear neurons and extinction neurons. Fear neurons mediate context-dependent f...

2 Summary In this chapter, we review data from appetitive conditioning studies using measures of pavlovian approach behaviour and of the effects of pavlovian conditioned stimuli on instrumental behaviour, including the pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer effect and conditioned reinforcement. These studies consistently demonstrate double dissociations of function between the basolateral area and ...

The central medial nucleus (CM) of thalamus is a prominent cell group of the rostral intralaminar complex of the thalamus. No previous report in the rat has comprehensively described the projections of CM. Using the anterograde anatomical tracer, Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin, we examined the efferent projections of CM, comparing projections from rostral (CMr) and caudal (CMc) regions of C...

Neuroanatomists posit that the central nucleus of the amygdala (Ce) and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) comprise two major nodes of a macrostructural forebrain entity termed the extended amygdala. The extended amygdala is thought to play a critical role in adaptive motivational behavior and is implicated in the pathophysiology of maladaptive fear and anxiety. Resting functional connec...

The adrenal glucocorticoid, corticosterone, induces changes in gene expression in both neural and non-neural tissues. The rhythmic release of corticosterone has been shown in rats to be necessary for the rhythmic expression of the clock protein PERIOD2 (PER2) in select regions of the limbic forebrain. The mechanisms mediating the effects of glucocorticoids on changes in gene expression have bee...