Neuron activity in the anterolateral motor cortex in operant food-acquiring and alcohol-acquiring behavior

Abstract

The interactions of the neuronal mechanisms of food-acquiring behavior and newly formed operant alcohol-acquiring behavior were studied by recording the activity of individual neurons in the anterolateral area of the motor cortex in chronically alcoholized rabbits. Adult animals learned food-acquiring behavior in a cage with two feeders and two pedals, in the comers (the food in the feeders was presented after pressing the corresponding pedal). After nine months of chronic alcoholization, the same rabbits learned an alcohol-acquiring behavior in the same experimental cage (gelatin capsules filled with 15% ethanol solution were placed in the feeders instead of food). Analysis of neuron activity showed that the set of neurons involved in supporting food-acquiring and alcohol-acquiring behaviors overlapped, though not completely. These experiments not only help us understand the neuronal mechanisms of the newly formed and the previously formed behaviors, but also facilitate the development of concepts of the similarity of the neuronal mechanisms of long-term memory and long-term modifications of the nervous system, occurring in conditions of repeated intake of addictive substances.

Neural Cell Behavior and Fuzzy Logic

“…AP threshold in response to the CS + during acquisition decreased. At the same time, the response to the CS − during acquisition revealed a small change in the number of APs as well as in the threshold value (trials 1,21,27). At the end of the acquisitions, the threshold in the response to the CS − exceeded the threshold in the response to the CS + .…”

“…It has been thought that a neuron ensures its demands at the expense of substances arriving from other neurons, particularly from neurotransmitters [21]. This rather reminds one of the Adam Smith ideas.…”

“…Typically, the problems discussed were: this circuit is critically involved or does not involved, presynaptic mechanism or postsynaptic, excitability changed or did not change, these protein kinases are essential and those are not essential, Ca 2+ participates or does not participate, protein synthesis is important or ribonucleic acid (RNA) one is important, etc. [21]. Nevertheless, many fascinating details 3 of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie synaptic plasticity have been established and they, mostly, 3 When synaptic stimulation, usually glutamatergic, reaches a given threshold or is repeated a number of times, it causes a persistent increase in the level of the diffusible second messenger cyclic AMP by activating the enzyme adenylyl cyclase.…”

“…Examples of response to the CS + (at the left) and CS − (middle). At the right, averaged changes in the first (I) and second AP (the latency 50-200 ms, II) thresholds in the responses to the CS + (left) and CS − (right) during acquisition (trials [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. The thresholds of the second APs were normalized according to the average threshold of the first AP in the same neuron.…”

“…A nonstationary environment requires a long time for investigating the reorganization of learning after a change in an environmental condition, for example, acquisition of one habit after preliminary acquisition of another or sudden replacement of rewards. Nevertheless such attempts were undertaken [1291,352,299,21,166,944], but body of data till is too small in order to make any conclusion. Properties of complementary molecular interactions might be the basis for changing the quasi steady combination of short-term memory molecules to another quasi steady combination under control of long-term memory (about which we know almost nothing).…”