Hippocampal response patterns during discriminative eyeblink/jaw movement conditioning in the rabbit

Rabbits were given concurrent training in eyeblink (EB) and jaw movement (JM) conditioning in which 1 tone predicted an airpuff and another tone predicted water. After 10 days of discrimination training, the animals were given 10 days of reversal training. In the discrimination phase, acquisition of the 2 conditioned responses was not significantly different; however JM discrimination errors were much more frequent than were EB errors. In the reversal phase, correct performance on EB trials increased gradually, as was expected, whereas there was immediate behavioral reversal on JM trials. Differences in size and topography of dorsal CA1 multiple-unit responses reflected the ability of the hippocampus to discriminate between stimuli in trained animals, corresponding to the performance of the behavioral discrimination. During JM trials, the rhythmicity of the neural response was further modulated by the type of the prior trial, suggesting the coding of sequential events by the hippocampus. Thus, hippocampal conditioned activity can rapidly change its magnitude and pattern depending on the specific trial type during a concurrent EB/JM discrimination task and its reversal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).