Fig. 1: Experiment 1: CNO in virus-free rats did not affect freezing or port behavior. | Neuropsychopharmacology

Fig. 1: Experiment 1: CNO in virus-free rats did not affect freezing or port behavior.

From: Suppressing fear in the presence of a safety cue requires infralimbic cortical signaling to central amygdala

Fig. 1

A Schematic of behavioral procedure for all rats. Reward training to tone A was paired with sucrose delivery across five sessions. One day later, a habituation session, which still consisted of reward training to tone A, also included pre-exposure trials to tone B and light cue. Discriminative conditioning (DC1-5) continued to deliver tone A-sucrose reward trials. It also paired tone B with footshock (fear cue), presented tone B with light without any footshock (fear + safety cue), and included light alone trials (safety cue). Vehicle injections were administered to all rats 20 min prior to DC1-3. Prior to DC4, half the rats received vehicle and half received 3 mg/kg CNO. The next day, prior to DC5, rats received the opposite drug treatment. B Freezing behavior during reward, fear, fear + safety, and safety cues across DC1-3 under vehicle conditions in virus-free rats. Freezing was significantly higher to the fear cue compared to the fear + safety cue during DC2 and DC3, indicating good fear discrimination (***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001 compared to fear cue). Freezing behavior during DC4 and DC5 also showed significantly higher freezing during the fear cue compared to the fear + safety cue under both vehicle and CNO conditions, indicating no effects on fear discrimination in virus-free rats under CNO conditions (**p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 compared to fear cue). C Port behavior during reward, fear, fear + safety, and safety cues across DC1-3 under vehicle conditions in virus-free rats. Port behavior was significantly higher than all other cues across DC1-3, indicating good reward discrimination. Port behavior during DC4 and DC5 also showed significantly higher port time during the reward cue compared to all other cues under both vehicle and CNO conditions, indicating no effects on reward discrimination in virus-free rats under CNO conditions. **p < 0.01, ****p < 0.0001 compared to all other cues within session, within drug treatment.

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