Amygdala Signaling during Foraging in a Hazardous Environment

• Published in: The Journal of neuroscience Vol. 35; no. 38; pp. 12994 - 13005
• Main Authors: Amir, Alon, Lee, Seung-Chan, Headley, Drew B., Herzallah, Mohammad M., Pare, Denis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Society for Neuroscience 23.09.2015
• Subjects: Action Potentials - physiology; Amygdala - cytology; Amygdala - physiology; Animals; Choice Behavior - physiology; Conditioning, Operant - physiology; Environment; Exploratory Behavior; Fear - psychology; Feeding Behavior - physiology; Neurons - classification; Neurons - physiology; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Reward; Robotics; reward; amygdala; threat; defensive behaviors; approach

We recorded basolateral amygdala (BL) neurons in a seminaturalistic foraging task. Rats had to leave their nest to retrieve food in an elongated arena inhabited by a mechanical predator. There were marked trial-to-trial variations in behavior. After poking their head into the foraging arena and wait...