Nature Neuroscience7, 398 - 403 (2004)
Published online: 7 March 2004; Corrected online: 14 March 2004 | doi:10.1038/nn1207
Glutamatergic activation of anterior cingulate cortex produces an aversive teaching signal
Joshua P Johansen1, 2, 3
& Howard L Fields1, 2
1
Departments of Neurology and Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Avenue, S-784, San Francisco, California 94143-0453, USA.
2
The W.M. Keck Foundation Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, 513 Parnassus Avenue, S-784, San Francisco, California 94143-0453, USA.
3
Present address: Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program for Neuroscience, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
Correspondence should be addressed to Howard L Fields hlf@itsa.ucsf.edu
Noxious stimuli have motivational power and can support associative learning, but the neural circuitry mediating such avoidance learning is poorly understood. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is implicated in the affective response to noxious stimuli and the motivational properties of conditioned stimuli that predict noxious stimulation. Using conditioned place aversion (CPA) in rats, we found that excitatory amino acid microinjection into the ACC during conditioning produces avoidance learning in the absence of a peripheral noxious stimulus. Furthermore, microinjection of an excitatory amino acid antagonist into the ACC during conditioning blocked learning elicited by a noxious stimulus. ACC lesions made after conditioning did not impair expression of CPA. Thus, ACC neuronal activity is necessary and sufficient for noxious stimuli to produce an aversive teaching signal. Our results support the idea that a shared ACC pathway mediates both pain-induced negative affect and a nociceptor-driven aversive teaching signal.
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