Bergado Acosta Jorge R, Schneider Miriam, Fendt Markus
Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Germany.
Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2017 Oct;144:48-52. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2017.06.001. Epub 2017 Jun 15.
Humans and animals are able to associate an environmental cue with the feeling of relief from an aversive event, a phenomenon called relief learning. Relief from an aversive event is rewarding and a relief-associated cue later induces an attenuation of the startle magnitude or approach behavior. Previous studies demonstrated that the nucleus accumbens is essential for relief learning. Here, we asked whether accumbal cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) receptors are involved in relief learning. In rats, we injected the CB1 receptor antagonist/inverse agonist SR141716A (rimonabant) directly into the nucleus accumbens at different time points during a relief learning experiment. SR141716A injections immediately before the conditioning inhibited relief learning. However, SR141716A injected immediately before the retention test was not effective when conditioning was without treatment. These findings indicate that accumbal CB1 receptors play an important role in the plasticity processes underlying relief learning.
人类和动物能够将环境线索与厌恶事件缓解后的轻松感联系起来，这种现象称为缓解学习。厌恶事件的缓解是一种奖赏，与缓解相关的线索随后会导致惊吓幅度或趋近行为的减弱。先前的研究表明，伏隔核对于缓解学习至关重要。在此，我们探讨伏隔核1型大麻素（CB1）受体是否参与缓解学习。在大鼠中，我们在缓解学习实验的不同时间点将CB1受体拮抗剂/反向激动剂SR141716A（利莫那班）直接注射到伏隔核中。在条件反射前立即注射SR141716A会抑制缓解学习。然而，当条件反射未进行处理时，在留存测试前立即注射SR141716A则无效。这些发现表明，伏隔核CB1受体在缓解学习背后的可塑性过程中起重要作用。
