Classical conditioning articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Goal-directed behaviors require the brain to integrate information across many task-related dimensions. Here, the authors use a virtual context discrimination paradigm in mice to demonstrate the capacity for neurons in the retrosplenial cortex to exhibit multidimensional encoding across learning.

    • Weilun Sun
    • , Ilseob Choi
    •  & Alexander Dityatev

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dopamine neurons in the mushroom body help Drosophila learn to approach rewards and avoid punishments. Here, the authors propose a model in which dopaminergic learning signals encode reinforcement prediction errors by utilising feedback reinforcement predictions from mushroom body output neurons.

    • James E. M. Bennett
    • , Andrew Philippides
    •  & Thomas Nowotny

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Tachykinin 2 (Tac2) pathway in the central amygdala is sufficient and necessary for modulating fear memory consolidation. The authors show that silencing Tac2 neurons in the amygdala of male mice reduces fear expression, while fear expression in female mice is increased when manipulations are made during proestrus.

    • A. Florido
    • , E. R. Velasco
    •  & R. Andero

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using a combination of two-photon imaging and single-cell electrophysiology, the authors discover that associative learning induces the emergence of a unique subset of neurons in the auditory cortex, exhibiting high-rate bursting responses to the learned complex sounds but not to any of the constituents.

    • Meng Wang
    • , Xiang Liao
    •  & Xiaowei Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is not entirely understood how network plasticity produces the coding of predicted value during stimulus-outcome learning. Here, the authors reveal a reinforcing loop in distributed limbic circuits, transforming sensory stimuli into reward prediction coding broadcasted by dopamine neurons to the brain.

    • Lars-Lennart Oettl
    • , Max Scheller
    •  & Wolfgang Kelsch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dopamine neurons are proposed to signal the reward prediction error in model-free reinforcement learning algorithms. Here, the authors show that when given during an associative learning task, optogenetic activation of dopamine neurons causes associative, rather than value, learning.

    • Melissa J. Sharpe
    • , Hannah M. Batchelor
    •  & Geoffrey Schoenbaum

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The molecular mechanisms underlying contextual fear memory consolidation by sparse dentate gyrus (DG) neuronal populations remain unclear. Here using unbiased RNA sequencing of DG engram neurons the authors identify persistent transcriptome modifications during memory consolidation, in which CREB-dependent transcription features prominently

    • Priyanka Rao-Ruiz
    • , Jonathan J. Couey
    •  & Steven A. Kushner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sounds vary in the strength of behavioural conditioning they can evoke, a property attributed to stimulus salience. Here, the authors show that stimulus salience the overall level of neuronal activity recruited in the auditory cortex is strongly related with its reinforcing strength.

    • Sebastian Ceballo
    • , Jacques Bourg
    •  & Brice Bathellier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pavlovian conditioning involves model-free learning that associates predictive stimuli with their outcome value. Here, the authors present evidence for activation of OFC and striatum that is consistent with model based information during a pavlovian task with multiple stimuli that predict rewards.

    • Wolfgang M. Pauli
    • , Giovanni Gentile
    •  & John P. O’Doherty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear how the basolateral amygdala (BLA) contributes to behaviors driven by aversive or appetitive stimuli. Here, authors simultaneously record the activities of ensembles of BLA neurons in behaving mice to show that distinct but spatially intermingled BLA populations respond to either reward or punishment and that associative learning transforms BLA population activities to represent specific valences

    • Xian Zhang
    •  & Bo Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There are two forms of extinction learning, which are vital for adaptive behaviour: simple extinction, when an expected outcome fails to occur, and overexpectation, when an exaggerated expectation is in conflict with the actual outcome. Iordanova et al.show that both forms of extinction learning have a common neural substrate in the amygdala.

    • Mihaela D. Iordanova
    • , Mickael L. D. Deroche
    •  & Geoffrey Schoenbaum

  • Article |

    The protein kinase CaMKII modulates synaptic plasticity and learning in both vertebrate and invertebrate organisms. In this study, the authors demonstrate a role for autophosphorylated CaMKII (pT305-CaMKII) in maintaining memory consolidation after classical conditioning in the invertebrate species Lymnaea.

    • Souvik Naskar
    • , Huimin Wan
    •  & György Kemenes

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