Instrumental avoidance conditioning of increased leg lowering in the spinal rat

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Neuroscience
• Spinal Cord Research

Background:

• Instrumental avoidance conditioning is a key learning paradigm.
• The role of the spinal cord in complex learned behaviors is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the capacity for instrumental avoidance conditioning in chronic spinal rats.
• To determine the necessity of the lumbosacral spinal cord for this learned behavior.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a counter-balanced instrumental avoidance paradigm with chronic spinal rats.
• Employed yoked control subjects for comparison.
• Assessed learning and retention after lumbosacral spinal cord aspiration in a subset of rats.

Main Results:

• Chronic spinal rats demonstrated the ability to learn instrumental avoidance through leg lowering.
• Rats with ablated lumbosacral spinal cords were incapable of this conditioned avoidance response.

Conclusions:

• The chronic spinal rat model is suitable for studying instrumental avoidance conditioning.
• The lumbosacral spinal cord is critically important for the execution of learned avoidance behaviors.