BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID: 1 VERSION:2.0 METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-TIMEZONE: America/Los_Angeles DTSTAMP: 20260531T131901 BEGIN:VEVENT UID: info@vconferenceonline.com SUMMARY:Behavioral Neuroscience Papers I: Appetitive and Aversive Learning PRIORITY:0 CATEGORIES:SESSION CLASS:PUBLIC DTSTART:20200617T080000 DTEND:20200617T092000 URL: https://event.vconferenceonline.com DESCRIPTION:CHAIR: MICHAEL STEINFELD

8:00am - 8:15am
RENEWAL OF GOAL-DIRECTED ACTIONS AND HABITS AFTER EXTINCTION
MICHAEL STEINFELD, MARK BOUTON (UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT)
Instrumental responses that have been extinguished are subject to renewal when the context is changed. To date, little research has asked whether this is true of behaviors that are goal-directed actions or habits. Four experiments assessed ABA and ABC renewal of responses that were extinguished after being trained as either actions or habits. The results confirm that extinction does not erase either action or habit learning, and that habits are context-specific, while actions are not.

8:20am - 8:35am
PRELIMBIC CORTEX INACTIVATION ATTENUATES OPERANT RESPONDING IN BOTH PHYSICAL AND BEHAVIORAL CONTEXTS
CALLUM THOMAS, ERIC THRAILKILL, MARK BOUTON, JOHN GREEN (UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT)
Operant behaviors are strongest when they are tested in the context in which they are learned. In rats, prelimbic cortex (PL) inactivation attenuates the performance of behaviors primarily in their acquisition contexts. Here, PL inactivation produced an analogous effect on the second behavior in a two-behavior chain provided it was tested in the “context” of the first behavior. The PL thus mediates the effects of acquisition contexts, whether physical or behavioral, on instrumental responding.

8:40am - 8:55am
NEURAL SOURCES OF AVERSIVE PREDICTION ERROR
RACHEL WALKER, MICHAEL MCDANNALD (BOSTON COLLEGE)
Aversive prediction errors are generated when there is a discrepancy between a predicted and received outcome, updating cue-outcome associations to alter future behavior. Using optogenetics to inhibit at the time of either positive or negative prediction error (PE), the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray was shown to generate positive PEs, and serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus were implicated in negative PE-related fear expression. Uncovering broader PE circuitry will inform greater understanding of the fear network.

9:00am - 9:15am
OPERATIONALIZING FEAR MEMORY STRENGTH
DAVID JOHNSON (YORK COLLEGE AND THE GRADUATE CENTER, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK)
Fear learning research shows that threat reinforcement rate impacts conditioned responding during acquisition. However, it’s not clear if these responses index memory strength. Here, we tested the impact of reinforcement rate on acquisition, extinction and fear recovery response (n=38). Data suggests that acquisition responses reflect underlying memory strength for only the partially, but not fully, reinforced stimulus. These findings highlight that researchers should carefully consider the threat reinforcement rate in their experimental designs. LOCATION: END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR