Amygdala Lesions Affect Acquisition of Signaled Lever-press Avoidance in Wistar Kyoto and Sprague Dawley Rats. — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Amygdala Lesions Affect Acquisition of Signaled Lever-press Avoidance in Wistar Kyoto and Sprague Dawley Rats.

Name: Kelly Moench
Major: Neuroscience, Psychology
Hometown: Janesville, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: Neuroscience, Carthage College, Kenosha, Wis; Stress & Motivated Behavior Institute (SMBI), Department of Neurology and Neurosciences, UMDNJ, East Orange, NJ; Neurobehavioral Research Lab, VA New Jersey Health Care System, East Orange, NJ

Name: Morgan Gianola
Major: Neuroscience, Spanish
Hometown: Broomfield, CO
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: Neuroscience, Carthage College, Kenosha, Wis; Stress & Motivated Behavior Institute (SMBI), Department of Neurology and Neurosciences, UMDNJ, East Orange, NJ; Neurobehavioral Research Lab, VA New Jersey Health Care System, East Orange, NJ

Name: Daniel Miller
Department: Natural Science
Type of research: SURE
Funding: Neuroscience, Carthage College, Kenosha, Wis; Stress & Motivated Behavior Institute (SMBI), Department of Neurology and Neurosciences, UMDNJ, East Orange, NJ; Neurobehavioral Research Lab, VA New Jersey Health Care System, East Orange, NJ

Name: Zachary Resch
Major: Neuroscience, Great Ideas
Hometown: Sheboygan, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: Neuroscience, Carthage College, Kenosha, Wis; Stress & Motivated Behavior Institute (SMBI), Department of Neurology and Neurosciences, UMDNJ, East Orange, NJ; Neurobehavioral Research Lab, VA New Jersey Health Care System, East Orange, NJ

Abstract

Servatius et al. (Behav. Brain Res., 2008) demonstrated that inbred Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats acquired signaled avoidance responding more rapidly and were resistant to extinction compared to Sprague Dawley (SD) rats. To test the role of the amygdala in acquisition of avoidance, we administered electrolytic lesions in the central and basolateral amygdala. WKY rats acquired avoidance faster than SD rats. Amygdala lesioned WKY rats showed a disruption in avoidance responds latency early in training, but by the end of training they were making short latency responses similar to shams. Our findings are similar to previous reports, where it was demonstrated that amygdala lesions delayed acquisition of classical conditioned responding (Lee & Kim, J. Neurosci., 2004). Thus our data suggest that emotional processing via the amygdala during instrumental conditioning is important for acquisition of instrumental conditioning as well as classical conditioning.

Poster file