Male rodent perirhinal cortex, but not ventral hippocampus, inhibition induces approach bias under object-based approach-avoidance conflict.

ABSTRACT: Neural models of approach-avoidance (AA) conflict behavior and its dysfunction have focused traditionally on the hippocampus, with the assumption that this medial temporal lobe (MTL) structure plays a ubiquitous role in arbitrating AA conflict. We challenge this perspective by using three different AA behavioral tasks in conjunction with optogenetics, to demonstrate that a neighboring region in male rats, perirhinal cortex, is also critically involved but only when conflicting motivational values are associated with objects and not contextual information. The ventral hippocampus, in contrast, was found not to be essential for object-associated AA conflict, suggesting its preferential involvement in context-associated conflict. We propose that stimulus type can impact MTL involvement during

SUBMITTER: Dhawan SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10292842 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature