The basolateral amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex circuitry regulates behavioral flexibility during appetitive reversal learning

Environmental cues can become predictors of food availability through Pavlovian conditioning. Two forebrain regions important in this associative learning are the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Recent work showed the BLA-mPFC pathway is activated when a cue reliably signals food, suggesting the BLA informs the mPFC of the cue's value. The current study tested this hypothesis by altering the value of 2 food cues using reversal learning and illness-induced devaluation paradigms. Rats that received unilateral excitotoxic lesions of the BLA and mPFC contralaterally placed, along with ipsilateral and sham controls, underwent discriminative conditioning, followed by reversal learning and then devaluation. All groups successfully discriminated between 2 auditory stimuli that were followed by food delivery (conditional stimulus [CS] +) or not rewarded (CS-), demonstrating this learning does not require BLA-mPFC communication. When the outcomes of the stimuli were reversed, the rats with disconnected BLA-mPFC (contralateral condition) showed increased responding to the CSs, especially to the rCS + (original CS-) during the first session, suggesting impaired cue memory recall and behavioral inhibition compared to the other groups. For devaluation, all groups successfully learned conditioned taste aversion; however, there was no evidence of cue devaluation or differences between groups. Interestingly, at the end of testing, the nondevalued contralateral group was still responding more to the original CS + (rCS-) compared to the devalued contralateral group. These results suggest a potential role for BLA-mPFC communication in guiding appropriate responding during periods of behavioral flexibility when the outcomes, and thus the values, of learned cues are altered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).