NEUROBIOLOGY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT--LATENT INHIBITION

这项建议旨在研究一种生物学基础， 潜伏抑制（LI）的发展变化的经典 条件性眼睑反应我们实验室之前的数据表明， 在出生后17天（PND 17）和PND 24之间逐渐出现条件反射 （Stanton，Freeman，& Stanton，1992; Freeman，Spencer，Spencer，& Stanton， 1993年）。 我们实验室最近对婴儿的研究使我们有可能观察到 不仅眼睑的行为和神经发育 已知大鼠的条件反射依赖于小脑 但为了进一步将这种分析扩展到其他大脑结构， 海马体，以及它们在调节更高的 学习的顺序形式，如（LI），在这个后期发展 学习系统为了解决这些问题， 我已经在我们的实验室里进行了开始建立个体发育 这种行为。 我们已经证明，虽然20天大的幼崽没有表现出 潜伏抑制，24和32日龄大鼠。 我们建议执行 选择性内侧间隔病变，然后在LI上测试幼仔，以观察是否 这种行为被打乱了。这种行为的个体发生可能反映了一种 海马和小脑之间的发育相互作用。

This proposal is designed to examine the biological bases of a developmental change in latent inhibition (LI) of the classically conditioned eyelid response. Previous data from our lab suggests that conditioning emerges gradually between postnatal day 17 (PND17) and PND24 (Stanton, Freeman, & Skelton, 1992; Freeman, Spencer, Skelton, & Stanton, 1993). Recent work in infants in our lab makes it possible to look at not only the behavioral and the neurological development of eyelid conditioning in the rat which is known to be dependent on the cerebellum but to further extend this analysis to other brain structures, such as the hippocampus, and what their role might be in the modulation of higher order forms of learning, such as (LI), within this late developing learning system. In order to address these issues preliminary studies of LI have been carried out in our lab to begin to establish the ontogeny of this behavior. We have shown that while 20-day-old pups do not show latent inhibition, 24-and 32-day-old rats do. We propose to perform selective medial septal lesions and afterwards test pups on LI to see if this behavior is disrupted. The ontogeny of this behavior may reflect a developmental interaction between the hippocampus and cerebellum.