A01 – Extinction Learning in the 4th Dimension
Onur Güntürkün, Roland Pusch
This project aims to understand neural fundaments of extinction of appetitive conditioning in pigeons in a design that permits to analyze neural events governing acquisition, context dependent extinction and renewal along the full time frame (the 4th dimension). We combine single cell recordings, fMRI and optogenetic methods in awake pigeons to analyze key events as well as causal interactions between brain areas of the extinction network (NCL, NFL, arcopallium, hippocampus) at the cellular and at the overall systems level. By studying a different animal model we aim to discover variant as well as invariant properties of extinction learning in terms of behavior and neurobiology.
Guiding questions of A01:
- Does extinction learning change the neural representation of conditioned stimuli (CS) in the “prefrontal” NCL, the motor arcopallium, the visual NFL, and the hippocampus in context-specific ways?
- How is the CS-representation in visual NFL and the hippocampus modulated by the the “prefrontal” NCL during extinction learning and renewal?
- Which forebrain areas beyond these four structures participate in appetitive extinction and renewal and what is their sequence of activation during a discrimination-extinction-renewal-cycle?
Onur Güntürkün
Projektleiter A01, F01, Z, ÖRuhr-Universität Bochum
Roland Pusch
Projektleiter A01Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Noemie Rook
Postdoc A01Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Mina Khodadadi
Postdoc A01Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Robert Reichert
Doktorand A01Ruhr-Universität Bochum
10 project-relevant publications
Behroozi M, Helluy X, Ströckens F, Gao M, Pusch R, Tabrik S, Tegenthoff M, Otto T, Axmacher N, Kumsta R, Moser D, Genç E, Güntürkün O (2020) Event-related functional MRI of awake behaving pigeons at 7T. Nat Commun. 11: 4715.
Von Eugen K, Tabrik S, Güntürkün O, Ströckens F (2020) Comparative analysis of the dopaminergic innervation of the executive caudal nidopallium in pigeon, chicken, zebra finch and carrion crow, J Comp Neurol. 528: 2929– 2955.
Gao M, Lengersdorf D, Stüttgen MC, Güntürkün O (2019a) Transient inactivation of the visual-associative nidopallium frontolaterale (NFL) impairs extinction learning and context encoding in pigeons. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 58: 50–59.
Gao M, Pusch R, Güntürkün O (2019b) Blocking NMDA-receptors in the pigeon’s medial striatum impairs extinction acquisition and induces a motoric disinhibition in an appetitive classical conditioning paradigm. Front Behav Neurosci. 13: 153.
Gao M, Lengersdorf D, Stüttgen MC, Güntürkün O (2018) NMDA receptors in the avian amygdala and the premotor arcopallium mediate distinct aspects of appetitive extinction learning. Behav Brain Res. 343: 71–82.
Packheiser J, Güntürkün O, Pusch R (2019) Renewal of extinguished behavior in pigeons (Columba livia) does not require memory consolidation of acquisition or extinction in one-day free-operant appetitive conditioning paradigms. Behav Brain Res. 370: 111947.
Packheiser J, Pusch R, Stein CC, Güntürkün O, Lachnit H, Uengoer M (2020a) How competitive is cue competition? Q J Exp Psychol. 73: 104–114.
Packheiser J, Donoso J, Cheng S, Güntürkün O, Pusch R (2020b) Trial-by-trial dynamics of reward prediction error associated signals during extinction learning and renewal. Prog Neurobiol: 101901.
Rook N, Tuff J, Isparta S, Masseck O, Herlitze S, Güntürkün O, Pusch R (2020) AAV1 is the optimal viral vector for optogenetic experiments in pigeons (Columba livia). Commun Biol. (accepted).
Stacho M, Herold C, Rook N, Wagner H, Axer M, Amunts K, Güntürkün O (2020) A cortex-like canonical circuit in the avian forebrain. Science. 369 (6511).