Preclinical data have shown that the excitatory metabotropic Gαq-coupled glutamate receptor, mGluR5, has a role in substance abuse and relapse. However, little is known about the contribution of mGluR5 to the expression of conditioned responding elicited by appetitive Pavlovian cues. We investigated this question in rats that were trained to associate a discrete, auditory conditioned stimulus (CS) with a fructose-glucose solution (5.5% fructose/4.5% glucose; 'sugar'). In subsequent tests for the expression of conditioned responding without sugar delivery, CS-elicited fluid port entries were elevated in a context associated with sugar, relative to an equally familiar, neutral context. Inhibiting mGluR5 via systemic injections of a negative allosteric modulator (MTEP; 5 mg/kg) reduced CS port entries in both the sugar context and neutral context. Targeting MTEP microinjections (3 µg/side; 0.3 µl/min) to the nucleus accumbens (Acb) core had no effect on CS port entries at test, whereas the same manipulation in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) produced effects that were topographically dependent. Specifically, microinjecting MTEP in the posterior BLA had no effect on behavior, whereas inhibiting mGluR5 in the anterior BLA enhanced the contextual discrimination of CS port entries. These data are the first to show a role of mGluR5 in the contextdependent expression of appetitive Pavlovian conditioned responding, with a topographically defined arrangement of mGluR5 in the BLA being particularly important for context-based responding to a discrete, appetitive cue.
HistologyStandard histological procedures [21] were used to visualize placements of the microinjectors within targeted brain regions (see supplementary materials and methods).
Data analyses and availability of materialsStatistical analyses were performed using SPSS 24 (IBM, NY, USA), and included paired ttests, repeated measures ANOVA, mixed-design ANOVA, Bonferroni-corrected post-hoc comparisons, and Pearson correlations. For repeated measures ANOVA, Greenhouse-Geisser sphericity corrections were used when ε < 0.75. The non-parametric Friedman's Two-Way ANOVA was used when data violated assumptions of homogeneity of variance. The behavior we measured was entries into the fluid port during different intervals of the session. These intervals included 10 s before each CS/NS (Pre-CS/NS), the 10 s CS/NS, and the variable inter-trial interval (ITI). Conditioned responding is depicted as an elevation score, calculated by subtracting Pre-CS port entries from CS port entries [30, 31]. Each experiment was run as a single replicate. The underlying raw data and Med-PC code are available on Figshare [32].
Results
CS port entries were selectively elevated in the sugar contextWe previously reported a reliable and selective elevation in port entries elicited by a CS that predicted alcohol in an alcohol context, relative to a neutral context [21]. The impact of context on port entries elicited by a CS that predicted sugar is unknown. To examine this question, rats (n=17) were t...