Honeybees are a standard model for the study of appetitive learning and memory. Yet, fewer attempts have been performed to characterize aversive learning and memory in this insect and uncover its molecular underpinnings. Here, we took advantage of the positive phototactic behavior of bees kept away from the hive in a dark environment and…

The trial-unique, delayed nonmatching-to-location (TUNL) task is a recently developed behavioral task that measures spatial working memory and a form of pattern separation in touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers. Limited information exists regarding the neurotransmitters and neural substrates involved in the task. The present…

Aversive outcomes punish behaviors that cause their occurrence. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) has been implicated in punishment learning and behavior, although the exact roles for different PFC regions in instrumental aversive learning and decision-making remain poorly understood. Here, we assessed the role of the orbitofrontal (OFC), rostral…

Feeding in "Aplysia" provides an amenable model system for analyzing the neuronal substrates of motivated behavior and its adaptability by associative reward learning and neuromodulation. Among such learning processes, appetitive operant conditioning that leads to a compulsive-like expression of feeding actions is known to be associated…

Dysfunction in the mirror neuron system has been proposed to underlie sociocognitive deficits of autism--such as imitation, empathy, and Theory of Mind, and has been linked with a deficient level of mu (8-13 Hz) suppression over the sensorimotor cortex during observed but not executed actions. Previous research has found that Neurofeedback…

The neural structures involved in ongoing appetitive and/or observational learning behaviors remain largely unknown. Operant conditioning and observational learning were evoked and recorded in a modified Skinner box provided with an on-line video recording system. Mice improved their acquisition of a simple operant conditioning task by…

When given to pigeons, the direct-acting dopamine agonist apomorphine elicits pecking. The response has been likened to foraging pecking because it bears remarkable similarity to foraging behavior, and it is enhanced by food deprivation. On the other hand, other data suggest the response is not related to foraging behavior and may even interfere…

Attention deficit disorders are among the most prevalent and widely studied of all psychiatric disorders. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that 9.0% of children (12.3% of boys and 5.5% of girls) between ages 5 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Research consistently demonstrates that attention deficits have a deleterious effect…

Evidence suggests that two regions of the striatum contribute differential support to instrumental response selection. The dorsomedial striatum (DMS) is thought to support expectancy-mediated actions, and the dorsolateral striatum (DLS) is thought to support habits. Currently it is unclear whether these regions store task-relevant information or…

Hippocampal-dependent tasks often involve specific associations among stimuli (including egocentric information), and such tasks are therefore prone to interference from irrelevant task strategies before a correct strategy is found. Using an object-place paired-associate task, we investigated changes in neural firing patterns in the hippocampus in…

When neural events are analyzed as stimuli and responses, functional relations among them and among overt stimuli and responses can be unveiled. The integration of neuroscience and the experimental analysis of behavior is beginning to provide empirical evidence of involvement of neural events in the three-term contingency relating discriminative…

The purpose of this article is to describe theoretical and research bases for constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT), to discuss key features and variations in protocols currently in use with children, and to review the results of studies of efficacy. CIMT has been found to be an effective intervention for increasing functional use of the…

This article presents an interpretation of autoshaping, and positive and negative automaintenance, based on a neural-network model. The model makes no distinction between operant and respondent learning mechanisms, and takes into account knowledge of hippocampal and dopaminergic systems. Four simulations were run, each one using an "A-B-A" design…

Stressful life events can have profound effects on our cognitive and motor abilities, from those that could be construed as adaptive to those not so. In this review, I discuss the general notion that acute stressful experience necessarily impairs our abilities to learn and remember. The effects of stress on operant conditioning, that is, learned…

Psychologists, social workers, and school counselors are increasingly adding neurofeedback (NFT), a controversial alternative or complementary therapy to their treatment plans for patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. NFT involves training the patient in self-regulation of brain wave patterns, employing a standard diagnostic…