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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 11, 2025

Operant Procedures for Assessing Behavioral Flexibility in Rats

Operant Procedures for Assessing Behavioral Flexibility in Rats

Published on: February 15, 2015

Responding to preconditioned cues is devaluation sensitive and requires orbitofrontal cortex during cue-cue learning.

Evan E Hart¹, Melissa J Sharpe^1,2, Matthew Ph Gardner¹

¹National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, United States.

|August 25, 2020

Summary

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is crucial for learning value associations. Inhibiting the OFC during initial learning prevents future value-based decisions, showing its essential role in building associative models.

Keywords:

model-based neuroscience orbitofrontal rat sensory preconditioning

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Neuroscience
Behavioral Neuroscience

Background:

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is implicated in value-based decision-making and model-based reasoning.
Previous research suggests the OFC may represent either value itself or broader associative structures.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether neural correlates of associative structure in the OFC are necessary for value inference.
To determine if the OFC's role in value inference is specifically required during the learning phase.

Main Methods:

Optogenetic inhibition of the OFC in rats during the cue-cue learning phase of sensory preconditioning.
Subsequent probe testing to assess value inference, including sensitivity to reward devaluation in control groups.

Main Results:

Inhibition of the OFC during cue-cue learning completely abolished value inference during probe testing.
Control rats demonstrated value inference that was sensitive to reward devaluation, confirming the task's validity.

Conclusions:

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is essential during the initial learning phase for building the associative models that support value inference.
These findings support the view that OFC activity contributes to constructing the associative structure, rather than merely reflecting processed sensory information.