Classical conditioning articles from across Nature Portfolio

Sias et al. show that dopamine projections to the basolateral amygdala drive the reward learning that supports the predictions and inferences needed for adaptive decision-making.

In this study, Rabah et al. investigate glucose usage in the brain, and show how glial cells transfer glycolysis-derived alanine to neurons in a fly model, thus supporting memory formation in cholinergic circuits.

Neuronal populations in the prefrontal cortex are involved in associative learning. Here the authors use longitudinal imaging and computational approaches in the mouse prefrontal cortex to observe changes in neuronal ensembles during fear conditioning.

By probing the dependence on learning history or motivational significance of stimuli, Sharpe and colleagues reveal previously uncharacterized contributions of lateral hypothalamus GABA neurons to associative learning.

The motto of the Royal Society, “nullius in verba”, enjoins scientists to ‘take nobody’s word for it’. Its call to trust nothing unless it can be replicated is no less relevant now than it was 360 years ago.

Rewards direct behavioral adaptation through midbrain dopamine signaling, though the timing of those effects is often ambiguous. Lee and colleagues find that different subpopulations of dopamine neurons obey similar constraints, indirectly regulating reward-related behavior through learning mechanisms restricted to a brief time window following reward.

Reitich-Stolero and Paz examined multineuron correlates of Pavlovian learning in the primate amygdala. They found repeating patterns of activity across neurons that may mediate synaptic-level plasticity mechanisms. This extends the notion of replay, often examined relative to navigation in the hippocampus, to aversive learning in the amygdala.

Using light-activated ion channels to stimulate sensory and motivational pathways, Vetere and colleagues constructed fully artificial memories in mice. Mice preferred or avoided an odor they had never smelled before, depending on the pattern of stimulation.