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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Whisker-signaled Eyeblink Classical Conditioning in Head-fixed Mice
Published on: March 30, 2016
Repeated acquisitions and extinctions in classical conditioning of the rabbit nictitating membrane response
1School of Psychology, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. j.kehoe@unsw.edu.au
Abstract:
The rabbit nictitating membrane (NM) response underwent successive stages of acquisition and extinction training in both delay (Experiment 1) and trace (Experiment 2) classical conditioning. In both cases, successive acquisitions became progressively faster, although the largest, most reliable acceleration occurred between the first and second acquisition. Successive extinctions were similar in rate. The results challenge contextual control theories of extinction but are consistent with attentional and layered-network models. The results are discussed with respect to their implications for the interaction between cerebellar and forebrain pathways for eyeblink conditioning.
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