Abstract
Successful adaptation to changes in an animal's emotional and motivational environment depends on behavioral flexibility accompanied by changes in bodily responses, e.g., autonomic and endocrine, which support the change in behavior. Here, we identify the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) as pivotal in the flexible regulation and coordination of behavioral and autonomic responses during adaptation. Using an appetitive Pavlovian task, we demonstrate that OFC lesions in the marmoset (i) impair an animal's ability to rapidly suppress its appetitive cardiovascular arousal upon termination of a conditioned stimulus and (ii) cause an uncoupling of the behavioral and autonomic components of the adaptive response after reversal of the reward contingencies. These findings highlight the role of the OFC in emotional regulation and are highly relevant to our understanding of disorders such as schizophrenia and autism in which uncoupling of emotional responses may contribute to the experiential distress and disadvantageous behavior associated with these disorders.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 9787-9792 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| Volume | 105 |
| Issue number | 28 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Jul 2008 |
Keywords
- behavioral inhibition
- emotion
- reversal learning
- PREFRONTAL CORTICAL PROJECTIONS
- CENTRAL NUCLEUS FUNCTION
- BASOLATERAL AMYGDALA
- INFRALIMBIC CORTEX
- MACAQUE MONKEYS
- FRONTAL-CORTEX
- RHESUS-MONKEYS
- LONGITUDINAL COLUMNS
- PERIAQUEDUCTAL GRAY
- EXTINCTION