NROC61H3 Lecture 6: Lecture 6
Document Summary
Article 1- phasic firing in dopaminergic neurons is sufficient for behavioural conditioning. In the 1950s, olds and milner had shown through experiments that stimulating certain regions in a rodent"s brain was rewarding. The rats were place in a box and were allowed to roam around. When they got to a certain corner, an electric stimulation was presented through the electrodes to stimulate a specific brain region. Over repeated exposure the rats began to spend their time in a certain corner due to the rewards they felt as result of the stimulation. They furthered this experiment by adding a lever in the apparatus. This lever would allow the rodents to apply intracranial self-stimulation (icss) themselves to certain regions. At one point the rats became so involved with pressing the lever (at the rate of 7000 presses/hour), that they ignored hunger and thirst until they collapsed from exhaustion.
