Subject Area
Psychology
Description
Conor Ollendike ’26, Major: Psychology, neuroscience certificate
Ashley Sawtelle ’26, Major: Psychology
Yamilet Nieves ’26, Major: Neuroscience, Minor: Women and Gender Studies
Rachael Layden ’23, Major: Psychology
Christopher Walsh ’23, Majors: Biology and Psychology, neuroscience certificate
Jose Pena ’25, Major: Neuroscience, Minor: Physics
Shelby Bawden ’23, Majors: Biology and Psychology, neuroscience certificate
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Victoria Templer, Psychology
Recent work suggests the Posterior Parietal Cortex (PPC) is necessary for the renewal of an extinguished conditioned fear response in a novel (ABA), but not a familiar (ABC) context (in ABA/C, slot 1 refers to acquisition; 2- extinction, 3 –renewal). We investigated whether such context-dependent renewal generalizes to positive conditioned stimuli in sham operated control rats and a small cohort of Designer Receptor Activated Only by Designer Drugs (DREADDs) PPC rats after delivery of CNO to inactivate PPC. Control rats renewed positive (light-food) and negative associations (tone-shock) regardless of the renewal context, replicating context dependent renewal in rodents found in previous literature. The positive condition conferred a significantly higher magnitude of renewal compared to the negative condition. When the PPC was deactivated, rats did not renew in both the positive and negative ABC condition but did in the ABA condition. However, when the PPC was active in both the ABC and ABA conditions all subjects renewed both positive and negative associations, matching the sham operated controls. These results suggest the PPC plays a crucial role in renewal of a context dependent conditioned fear response as well as a context dependent conditioned positive response.
Publisher
Providence College
Type
Poster
Date
4-26-2023
Format
Text
Language
English
