Prenatal Exposure to Cocaine Impairs Neuronal Coding of Attention and Discriminative Learning(a)

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
M Gabriel, Carrie Taylor

Abstract

Cingulate cortex and related areas of the thalamus are critically involved in the mediation of discriminative avoidance learning, wherein rabbits step in response to an acoustic conditional stimulus (CS+) to avoid foot shock and they learn to ignore a different acoustic stimulus (CS-) not followed by shock. Studies of multi-unit neuronal activity recorded simultaneously in many cingulothalamic areas have documented massive learning-related neuronal firing changes during the course of behavioral acquisition. Stimulated by findings (this volume) of neurobiological changes in anterior cingulate cortex in rabbits exposed in utero to cocaine, we investigated behavioral learning and correlated neuronal activity in several cingulothalamic areas in cocaine-exposed rabbits. In an initial study, training-induced enhancement of cingulate cortical neuronal firing in response to the CS+ and CS- was abolished in rabbits exposed to cocaine in utero. Yet discriminative neuronal activity (greater firing in response to the CS+ than to the CS-) did develop during training, and behavioral learning was normal in the cocaine-exposed rabbits. In a second study, we reduced the salience of the CS+ and CS- by employing 200 msec CSs rather than standard ...Continue Reading

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Citations

Aug 7, 2010·Human Brain Mapping·Zhihao LiXiaoping Hu
May 29, 2002·Journal of Perinatology : Official Journal of the California Perinatal Association·Rosemary White-TrautJames Kahn
Sep 7, 2000·Neurotoxicology and Teratology·P J BushnellD M Warburton
Aug 26, 1998·Drug and Alcohol Dependence·P Levitt
Nov 18, 2005·Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research·C SchmiedtC Basar-Eroglu

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