Septum and behavior: A review.

Pa, Fried

doi:10.1037/h0033205

Cited by 221 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 149 publications

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“…Finally, it should be mentioned that no attempt is made here to allege that the cue-fading procedure has affected other aspects of the septal dysfunction (Fried, 1972). Rather, we are simply demonstrating that one aspect of the dysfunction, i.e., high response/ reinforcement ratios on operant schedules such as DRL, can be totally eliminated under appropriate training conditions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of cue-fading on the DRL performance of septal and normal rats

1977

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The effect of a cue-light fading procedure on the subsequent noncued performance under a differential-reinforcement-of-Iow-rate schedule (DRL) of food reinforcement was determined for rats with septal lesions and normal rats. Following initial DRL-20 sec training. all animals were trained with a cued DRL schedule in which a light signaled the end of the required delay and the availability of reinforcement. Subsequently. for one-half of the animals. the cue light was abruptly discontinued; for the remainder of the subjects. the cue was gradually faded out over succeeding sessions. Septal animals. which had the cue gradually faded. were more efficient by the end of training than septal animals which had the light abruptly discontinued. Moreover. the former did not differ from normal controls. For septal animals in the Fade grouP. the relative frequency distributions of interresponse times (lRTs) were bimodal. a characteristic of normal animals;-.septal animals which had the cue abruptly terminated. displayed the unimodal distribution of IRTs which is a characteristic of septal animals on the DRL schedule. In summary. the cue-fading procedure completely eliminated the major differences in behavior between normal and septal rats typically observed on a DRL schedule of food reinforcement.It is well documented that septal animals perform less efficiently, i.e., they emit more responses per reinforcement (response/reinforcement ratio) than do normals on a differential-reinforcement-oflow-rate (DRL) schedule (Burkett & Bunnell, 1966;Ellen, Wilson, & Powell, 1964). A DRL schedule requires that the animal not respond for some minimum period of time. At the end of the required interval, a response will deliver the reinforcer; if the response is made before the required time has elapsed, reinforcement is not delivered and the clock is recycled. However, high response/ reinforcement ratios are not an invariant consequence of septal damage. A variety of techniques have been shown to attenuate the inefficiency of septal animals on a DRL schedule. For example, cued DRL (Aitken, 1974;Braggio & Ellen, 1976;Ellen & Butter, 1969) with a light as the cue signaling the end of the required delay has been used to decrease the response/reinforcement ratios. Providing the animal with a wooden block and cardboard to chew (Slonaker & Hothersall, 1972) has also produced more efficient septal performance on the DRL schedule. Braggio and Ellen (1974) press the lever was increased or decreased from a particular value as a function of time since the last response.Regardless of the technique used to reduce the response/reinforcement ratios of septal animals, the effectiveness of such procedures has been limited to the condition when the treatment was applied and did not carryover when the normal DRL procedure was reinstated. That is, performance reverted to the typical inefficient pattern when the additional stimuli were removed. Inasmuch as these response characteristics reappeared, Braggio and Ellen (1976) concluded that an inefficient perfor...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of cue-fading on the DRL performance of septal and normal rats

1977

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“…The fact that the performance of animals with septal lesions on DRL and position reversal tasks can be dramatically improved by introducing additional stimuli which predict the availability of reinforcement (e.g., Ellen & Butter, 1969;Srebro, 1974) has led several workers (see, e.g., Fried, 1972) to propose that septal lesions impair the ability to utilize response-produced cues. While this interpretation may be in part correct, it is also clear that the performance of animals with septal lesions may be grossly abnormal in learning tasks where exteroceptive stimuli provide the discriminative cues.…”

Section: Discu~ionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variations in magnitude of reward and position reversal learning following septal lesions in the rat

et al. 1975

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Two experiments examined the possibility that increased reactivity to positive reinforcement might contribute to the deficient performance on position reversal tasks by rats with septal lesions. Increasing the number of Noyes pellet rewards facilitated reversal learning by control subjects and by rats with septal lesions, but the magnitude of the impairment by the animals with lesions was not affected by the variation in quantity of reinforcement; regardless of the reward magnitude, rats with septal lesions exhibited impairments in performance that persisted for 10 reversals. Altering the quality of reinforcement also did not affect reversal performance by the animals with lesions.Lesions of the septal area disrupt performance on a number of tasks which require the subject to abandon an initially prepotent response including passive avoidance behavior (e.g., McCleary, 1961; see Fried, 1972 for additional references), responding on DRL schedules (e.g., Braggio & Ellen, 1974; Ellen, Wilson & Powell, 1964) and reversal of a position habit (e.g., Donovick, 1968; Hamilton, Kelsey, & Grossman, 1970;Schwartzbaum & Donovick, 1968). Septal lesions also enhance responsiveness to a wide range of positive reinforcers including water (e.g., Harvey & Hunt, 1965), sucrose (e.g., Beatty & Schwartzbaum, 1968; Neill, Ross, & Grossman, 1974), and Noyes pellets (Hothersall, Johnson, & Colleen, 1970). Recent findings indicate that the exaggerated reaction to positive reinforcement that accompanies damage to the septum contributes to the deficit in performance of passive avoidance ( In the present experiments, we evaluated the possibility that motivational changes might contribute to the deficits observed following septal lesions on position reversal learning. This possibility seemed worth assessing because deficits in position reversal after septal lesions are accompanied by more rapid performance on the task (Donovick, 1968;Schwartzbaum & Donovick, 1968). If exaggerated responsiveness to positive reinforcement is a factor in the deficient position reversal learning of rats with septal lesions, then reducing the attractiveness of the reinforcer by reducing its quality or quantity would be expected to attenuate the magnitude of the deficit. EXPERIMENT IIn this experiment, the effect of varying the quality of reinforcement by adulterating standard Noyes pellets with cellulose on reversal learning was studied. Reducing the attractiveness of the reinforcer in this way has been shown to reduce the deficit in passive avoidance behavior (Beatty et aJ., 1973) and DRL performance (Carlson et aJ., Note 1) in animals with septal lesions. MethodAnimals. The subjects were 17 naive male Holtzman rats that weighed 300-340 g at the start of the experiment. They were caged singly in an air-conditioned animal room that was illuminated from 0900 to 2100. Behavioral tests occurred during the light portion of the diurnal cycle. The rats were assigned randomly to one of three groups: One group (N = 6) received bilateral septal lesions and were rewa...

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“…The LS may also be important to the regulation of feeding. Lesioning the septum results in increased feeding behavior (24), greater licking responses to sucrose solutions, and exaggerated facilitatory and inhibitory behavior when various solutions (palatable or aversive) or tastants are offered, suggesting that the LS may be involved in the rewarding aspects of feeding (18,47). Several pieces of evidence suggest that the intermediate portion of the LS (LSi) is an important site of UCN action: UCN has a dense fiber network in the LSi (6, 25); UCN peptide and CRHR2 coexist within the LSi (16,25,35,48); and intracerebroventricular administration of UCN elevates c-Fos expression (an indicator of cellular activation) in CRHR2-containing cells within the LSi (48).…”

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confidence: 99%

Urocortin in the lateral septal area modulates feeding induced by orexin A in the lateral hypothalamus

Wang

Kotz

2002

American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comp

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Wang, ChuanFeng, and Catherine M. Kotz. Urocortin in the lateral septal area modulates feeding induced by orexin A in the lateral hypothalamus. Am J Physiol Regulatory Integrative Comp Physiol 283: R358-R367, 2002; 10.1152/ajpregu.00558.2001.-The intermediate portion of the lateral septum (LSi) contains high levels of urocortin (UCN) peptide and type 2 corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) receptor (CRHR2) and has anatomic and functional connections with the lateral hypothalamus (LH). We tested the effect of UCN in the LSi on feeding. Injection of 10 or 30 pmol UCN into LSi significantly decreased feeding in fooddeprived rats for 24 h without producing conditioned taste aversion (CTA). Pretreatment with a CRH receptor antagonist, ␣-helical CRH (␣-hCRH), blocked the inhibitory effect of UCN on deprivation-induced feeding at 1 and 2 h postinjection. Furthermore, UCN in the LSi significantly decreased feeding induced by LH-injected orexin A at 2 and 4 h postinjection, and addition of ␣-hCRH blocked the inhibitory effect of UCN on orexin A-induced feeding. In conclusion, UCN significantly inhibits feeding induced by deprivation and LH-injected orexin A without producing a CTA, an effect that is mediated by CRHR2. These data define the LSi as an important site for UCN-induced anorexia and indicate that LSi UCN may influence orexin A feeding signals in the LH.intermediate portion of lateral septum; corticotropin releasing hormone receptor; satiety UROCORTIN (UCN) is a recently identified member of the corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) family (48) that decreases normal and deprivation-induced feeding after intracerebroventricular injection (42). UCN also decreases normal and/or deprivation-induced feeding after injection into the 4th ventricle (19), the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) (49), and the hypothalamic ventromedial nucleus (30, 31) and decreases neuropeptide Y-induced feeding after injection into the PVN (49). UCN binds to all three CRH receptors with higher affinity than CRH but binds with particular avidity to the type 2 CRH receptor (CRHR2) (48). CRHR2 knockout mice and rats treated with antisense to CRHR2 display alterations in feeding behavior (3,11,41). Together these studies imply that UCN may be the endogenous ligand for CRHR2 (25,48). Ventricular injection of UCN decreases feeding with an ED 50 25 times less than that for CRH (42) and with attenuated anxiogenic responses compared with that observed after CRH administration. However, the difference in magnitude of feeding inhibition by UCN and CRH in the PVN was not as profound as that observed after intracerebroventricular injection, which suggests the presence of other, potentially more sensitive sites for UCN action.The lateral septum (LS) is part of the limbic system and is important in memory, learning, reward, stress, and defense mechanisms. The LS may also be important to the regulation of feeding. Lesioning the septum results in increased feeding behavior (24), greater licking responses to sucrose solutions, and exaggerated faci...

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Septum and behavior: A review.

Cited by 221 publications

References 149 publications

The effect of cue-fading on the DRL performance of septal and normal rats

The effect of cue-fading on the DRL performance of septal and normal rats

Variations in magnitude of reward and position reversal learning following septal lesions in the rat

Urocortin in the lateral septal area modulates feeding induced by orexin A in the lateral hypothalamus

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