Conditioned inhibition in preweanling rats

Aranda‐Fernández, P. Ezequiel; Gaztañaga, Mirari; Arias, Carlos F.; Chotro, M. Gabriela

doi:10.1002/dev.21359

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(39 reference statements)

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“…Aside from studies of drugs and the brain, some researchers have inquired into the ontogenetic and phylogenetic boundaries of conditioned inhibition. Aranda-Fernández, Gaztañaga, Arias, and Chotro (2016) assessed conditioned inhibition in preweanling rats using a taste aversion paradigm. Intriguingly, at this age (9–22 days) only male rat pups passed summation and retardation tests, whereas females failed to do so.…”

Section: Recent Advancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditioned inhibition: Historical critiques and controversies in the light of recent advances.

Sosa

Ramírez

2019

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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Conditioned inhibition is a Pavlovian learning phenomenon in which a stimulus that predicts the absence of an otherwise expected outcome comes to control an organism’s responding. Such responding usually manifests as a tendency that opposes that of a stimulus that predicts the outcome, also known as a conditioned excitor. Some learning theorists have expressed concerns about the validity and usefulness of conditioned inhibition as a concept; claims that may have negatively affected the reputation of this research area. This article offers a contemporary review of critiques of and controversies over conditioned inhibition and of arguments advanced in its defense. Some of these disputes have been reported in previous reviews, but here we have sought to compile the most representative among them. We also propose new arguments that answer some of those critiques. We then address the most prominent theoretical accounts of conditioned inhibition, identifying commonalities and differences among some of them. Finally, we review recent studies of conditioned inhibition. Some of the new findings contribute to rejecting early critiques of conditioned inhibition and others further elucidate the nature of this phenomenon. A new set of studies suggests that a deficit in conditioned inhibition characterizes some psychiatric conditions, illustrating its translational importance. We believe that new generations of researchers will benefit from being aware of past controversies and how they may have shaped the current conception of conditioned inhibition.

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Section: Recent Advancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditioned inhibition: Historical critiques and controversies in the light of recent advances.

Sosa

Ramírez

2019

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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“…Our work already discussed above showed that female rats, while showing significant CS+ versus CS− fear discrimination, do not show significantly reduced freezing responses during CS+/CS− compound cue compared to the CS+, while males do (Greiner et al, 2019; Krueger et al, 2024). However, while the above work and others found a lack of conditioned inhibition in females using summation or retardation tests (Aranda-Fernandez et al, 2016; Day et al, 2016; Greiner et al, 2019; Krueger et al, 2024), at least one study presents data to the contrary (Foilb et al, 2017).…”

Section: Conditional Discrimination and Inhibition In Rodent Studiesmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…The limited rodent literature examining sex differences in conditional inhibition largely finds that females do not suppress fear during conditioned inhibition paradigms (Aranda-Fernandez et al, 2016; Day et al, 2016; Greiner et al, 2019; Krueger et al, 2024, but see Foilb et al, 2017). Interestingly, one of our studies showed that neither male nor female mice bred for high alcohol preference showed significant conditioned inhibition unless subjected to a juvenile stressor (Müller et al, 2021).…”

Section: Conditional Discrimination and Inhibition In Rodent Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translational approaches to the neurobiological study of conditional discrimination and inhibition: Implications for psychiatric disease.

Sangha,

Fitzgerald

2024

Behavioral Neuroscience

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There is a growing number of studies investigating discriminatory fear conditioning and conditioned inhibition of fear to assess safety learning, in addition to extinction of cued fear. Despite all of these paradigms resulting in a reduction in fear expression, there are nuanced differences among them, which could be mediated through distinct behavioral and neural mechanisms. These differences could impact how we approach potential treatment options in clinical disorders with dysregulated fear responses. The objective of this review is to give an overview of the conditional discrimination and inhibition findings reported in both animal models and human neuropsychiatric disorders. Both behavioral and neural findings are reviewed among human and rodent studies that include conditional fear discrimination via conditional stimuli with and without reinforcement (CS+ vs. CS−, respectively) and/or conditional inhibition of fear through assessment of the fear response to a compound CS−/CS+ cue versus CS+. There are several parallels across species in behavioral fear expression as well as neural circuits promoting fear reduction in response to a CS− and/or CS−/CS+ compound cue. Continued and increased efforts to compare similar behavioral fear inhibition paradigms across species are needed to make breakthrough advances in our understanding and treatment approaches to individuals with fear disorders.

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“…Other studies, however, report that male rodents display greater fear suppression during summation tests compared with females. For example, in preweanling rats, only males showed suppression of aversive responses in a taste aversion paradigm in the presence of a safety cue ( Aranda-Fernandez et al 2016 ). In addition, exposure to early life stress in rats produces greater fear responses to certain and uncertain threat cues and increases alcohol consumption in females compared with males ( Walker et al 2018 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other studies, however, report sex differences in conditioned inhibition, with female rodents performing worse compared with males. In preweanlings, male rats showed conditioned inhibition in a taste aversion paradigm, whereas females did not suppress aversive responses in the presence of the safety cue ( Aranda-Fernandez et al 2016 ). Greiner et al (2019) found that male, but not female, rats successfully suppressed conditioned freezing in the presence of a safety cue in a fear, safety, and reward discrimination task.…”

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confidence: 99%

Stress and sex-dependent effects on conditioned inhibition of fear

Adkins¹,

Halcomb²,

Rogers³

et al. 2022

Learn. Mem.

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Anxiety and stress-related disorders are highly prevalent and are characterized by excessive fear to threatening and nonthreatening stimuli. Moreover, there is a large sex bias in vulnerability to anxiety and stress-related disorders—women make up a disproportionately larger number of affected individuals compared with men. Growing evidence suggests that an impaired ability to suppress fear in the presence of safety signals may in part contribute to the development and maintenance of many anxiety and stress-related disorders. However, the sex-dependent impact of stress on conditioned inhibition of fear remains unclear. The present study investigated sex differences in the acquisition and recall of conditioned inhibition in male and female mice with a focus on understanding how stress impacts fear suppression. In these experiments, the training context served as the “fear” cue and an explicit tone served as the “safety” cue. Here, we found a possible sex difference in the training requirements for safety learning, although this effect was not consistent across experiments. Reductions in freezing to the safety cue in female mice were also not due to alternative fear behavior expression such as darting. Next, using footshock as a stressor, we found that males were impaired in conditioned inhibition of freezing when the stress was experienced before, but not after, conditioned inhibition training. Females were unaffected by footshock stress when it was administered at either time. Extended conditioned inhibition training in males eliminated the deficit produced by footshock stress. Finally, exposing male and female mice to swim stress impaired safety learning in male mice only. Thus, we found sex × stress interactions in the learning of conditioned inhibition and sex-dependent effects of stress modality. The present study adds to the growing literature on sex differences in safety learning, which will be critical for developing sex-specific therapies for a variety of fear-related disorders that involve excessive fear and/or impaired fear inhibition.

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Conditioned inhibition in preweanling rats

Cited by 6 publications

References 33 publications

Conditioned inhibition: Historical critiques and controversies in the light of recent advances.

Conditioned inhibition: Historical critiques and controversies in the light of recent advances.

Translational approaches to the neurobiological study of conditional discrimination and inhibition: Implications for psychiatric disease.

Stress and sex-dependent effects on conditioned inhibition of fear

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