Pavlovian fear conditioning is a widely used behavioral paradigm for studying associative learning in rodents. Despite early recognition that subjects may engage in a variety of both conditioned and unconditioned responses, the last several decades have seen the field narrow its focus to measure freezing as the sole indicator of conditioned fear.…

In obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), functional behaviors such as checking that a door is locked become dysfunctional, maladaptive, and debilitating. However, it is currently unknown how aversive and appetitive motivations interact to produce functional and dysfunctional behavior in OCD. Here we show a double dissociation in the effects of…

Animal trainers working in scent detection programs are responsible for arranging training contingencies as well as for observing and recording animal behavior. We provided behavioral skills training (BST) to animal trainers working with scent detection rats to improve the treatment integrity of scent-detection research sessions. We evaluated the…

Evolutionary anthropologists commonly describe humans as a highly cooperative species, based on our evolved socio-cognitive capacities. However, students and the general public may not necessarily share this view about our species. At the same time, fostering our ability to cooperate is considered a key foundation for achieving sustainable…

Through four previous editions, students and instructors have relied on this book's clear, concise, and highly accessible overview of the processes and mechanisms responsible for conditioning and learning. Domjan and Delamater summarize major theories of how humans and nonhuman animals learn, along with the classic experiments that support these…

A fundamental property of extinction is that the behavior that is suppressed during extinction can be unmasked through a number of postextinction procedures. Of the commonly studied unmasking procedures (spontaneous recovery, reinstatement, contextual renewal, and rapid reacquisition), rapid reacquisition is the only approach that allows a direct…

Objective: We offer an overview of ADHD research using mouse models of nicotine exposure. Method: Nicotine exposure of C57BL/6 or Swiss Webster mice occurred during prenatal period only or during the prenatal and the preweaning periods. Behavioral, neuroanatomical and neurotransmitter assays were used to investigate neurobiological mechanisms of…

The loss of behavioral flexibility is common across a number of neuropsychiatric illnesses. This may be in part due to the loss of the ability to detect or use changes in action-outcome contingencies to guide behavior. There is growing evidence that the ventral hippocampus plays a critical role in the regulation of flexible behavior and…

Background: The goals of laboratory experiences include developing knowledge base, research skills, and scientific communication abilities. Objective: The aim was to assess an inquiry-based laboratory activity using the model organism "Caenorhabditis elegans" in relation to learning goals. Method: Students in a "Biopsychology"…

When asked to describe possible elicitors of fear, American children generate more stories about imaginary creatures than realistic ones; Palestinian children generate more realistic than imaginary causes (Kayyal et al., 2015). The current study reversed this task to investigate whether these patterns persist when American (n = 72) and Palestinian…

An important question regards how we use environmental boundaries to anchor spatial representations during navigation. Behavioral and neurophysiological models appear to provide conflicting predictions, and this question has been difficult to answer because of technical challenges with testing navigation in novel, large-scale, realistic spatial…

Drugs of abuse cause changes in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and associated regions that impair inhibitory control over drug-seeking. Breaking the contingencies between drug-associated cues and the delivery of the reward during extinction learning reduces rates of relapse. Here we used vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) to induce targeted synaptic…

Though the significance of involving children in environmental sustainability efforts is widely acknowledged, we still lack evidence on what they think of environmental issues and about the protection of nature. The aim of the paper is to systematically describe the reasons that children give for protecting the environment. Thirty-three children…

Habituation is a highly conserved phenomenon that remains poorly understood at the molecular level. Invertebrate model systems, like "Caenorhabditis elegans," can be a powerful tool for investigating this fundamental process. Here we established a high-throughput learning assay that used real-time computer vision software for behavioral…

Active avoidance (AA) is an important paradigm for studying mechanisms of aversive instrumental learning, pathological anxiety, and active coping. Unfortunately, AA neurocircuits are poorly understood, partly because behavior is highly variable and reflects a competition between Pavlovian reactions and instrumental actions. Here we exploited the…