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Updated: Aug 19, 2026

Operant Procedures for Assessing Behavioral Flexibility in Rats
Published on: February 15, 2015
Orbitofrontal lesions impair use of cue-outcome associations in a devaluation task
Charles L Pickens1, Michael P Saddoris, Michela Gallagher
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. cpicken3@jhu.edu
Abstract:
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has been implicated in the use of outcome expectancies to guide behavior. The present study used a devaluation task to examine this function. Rats first received light-food pairings followed by food-toxin pairings designed to devalue the food. After either excitotoxic or sham OFC lesions, responding to the light was reassessed. Sham-lesioned rats showed reduced responding to the light relative to behavioral controls, which had received food and toxin unpaired. In contrast, OFC-lesioned rats showed no such reductions. Combined with previous data (C. L. Pickens, M. P. Saddoris, B. Setlow, M. Gallagher, P. C. Holland, & G. Schoenbaum, 2003), these results indicate that the OFC is critical for the maintenance of information about the current incentive value of reinforcers or the use of that information to guide behavior.
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