Role of glutamate receptors of central and basolateral amygdala nuclei on retrieval and reconsolidation of taste aversive memory

Extinction learning, which consists of the inhibition of retrieval, can be learned without retrieval

“…Thus, perception of the CS seems to be far more important for the triggering of extinction learning than the behavioral response to it. Unless some other subbehavioral correlate of retrieval is found, this seems to be the simplest and most parsimonious explanation for the present results and perhaps also for those of Balderas et al When our results are put together with those obtained by Bermudez-Rattoni and his group in two other different tasks (5,6,16,21), it seems clear that extinction and reconsolidation must be considered under a new light: perhaps not as opposite behavioral processes that can be triggered by retrieval (14) but possibly as part of a continuum or a diversity of protein synthesismediated events, some of which may indeed overlap (31), and that can be set into motion by the simple perception of the CS or CSs, or some other event other than the performance or the inhibition of performance of a behavioral response.…”

“…In both tasks, the drugs selectively blocked retrieval but spared reconsolidation, suggesting that the two neural processes are independent from each other (16,21). In contrast, a glutamate NMDA receptor antagonist blocked the reconsolidation of conditioned taste aversion when given into the BLA (21) and that of object recognition when infused into the perirhinal cortex (16).…”

“…Bermudez-Rattoni and his group showed that the performance of unreinforced retrieval is not necessary to trigger reconsolidation of conditioned taste aversion (5,21) or of object recognition learning (6,16). The methodology used by this group is very straightforward: it consists of the pharmacological blockade of retrieval with microinfusions of ciano-nitro-quinoxaline-dione, an antagonist of AMPA receptors (16,21), or of the GABA A receptor agonist muscimol (Mus) (5) given into the basolateral amygdala (BLA) for conditioned taste aversion or into the perirhinal cortex for object recognition (6).…”

“…The methodology used by this group is very straightforward: it consists of the pharmacological blockade of retrieval with microinfusions of ciano-nitro-quinoxaline-dione, an antagonist of AMPA receptors (16,21), or of the GABA A receptor agonist muscimol (Mus) (5) given into the basolateral amygdala (BLA) for conditioned taste aversion or into the perirhinal cortex for object recognition (6). In both tasks, the drugs selectively blocked retrieval but spared reconsolidation, suggesting that the two neural processes are independent from each other (16,21). In contrast, a glutamate NMDA receptor antagonist blocked the reconsolidation of conditioned taste aversion when given into the BLA (21) and that of object recognition when infused into the perirhinal cortex (16).…”

Retrieval is not necessary to trigger reconsolidation of object recognition memory in the perirhinal cortex

“…Some of these studies have shown that inhibition of the a-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptors of the basolateral amygdala impairs retrieval of aversive memories, without affecting its reconsolidation (Ben Mamou et al 2006;Rodriguez-Ortiz et al 2012;Milton et al 2013; GarciaDelatorre et al 2014). Conversely, inhibition of N-methyl-Daspartate (NMDA) receptors disrupts reconsolidation of aversive memories but spare retrieval (Garcia-Delatorre et al 2014).A recent study evaluated the capacity of retrieval to trigger memory reconsolidation in a nonaversive task, i.e., the object recognition task (Balderas et al 2013). The object recognition task is widely used to evaluate recognition memory in rodents, since it has been suggested that it maintains a close analogy to the recognition memory task used in humans to assess impairments in declarative memories (Reed and Squire 1997).…”