The effect of lesions of the basolateral amygdala on instrumental conditioning
Open accessAbstract
In three experiments, we assessed the effect of lesions of the amygdala basolateral complex (BLA) on instrumental conditioning in rats. In experiment 1, the lesion had no effect on the acquisition of either lever pressing or chain pulling in food-deprived rats whether these actions earned food pellets or a maltodextrin solution. The lesion did attenuate, however, the impact of outcome devaluation, induced by sensory-specific satiety, on instrumental performance both when assessed in extinction and when reward was delivered contingent on instrumental performance. In experiment 2, evidence was found to suggest that the lesioned rats differed from shams in their ability to encode the specific action-outcome contingencies to which they were exposed during training: lesioned rats failed to adjust their performance appropriately when the action-outcome contingency was degraded. These effects were not caused by an inability of BLA lesioned rats to discriminate the two instrumental actions; these rats were similar to shams in their acquisition of a heterogeneous instrumental chain involving lever pressing and chain pulling (experiment 3). In experiment 4, however, lesions of the BLA were found to produce a deficit in the ability of rats to use the specific properties of the instrumental outcomes used in the previous experiments to discriminate rewarded from unrewarded actions in a free operant discrimination situation. Together these results suggest that in instrumental conditioning, the BLA mediates outcome encoding, specifically relating the sensory features of nutritive commodities to the emotional consequences induced by their consumption.
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Experiments in rats yield similar results on the devaluation task.
“Experiments in rats yield similar results (76–78).”
From Localization of Dysfunction in Major Depressive Disorder: Prefrontal Cortex and Amygdala (2011) · cites this paper as [77]
The basolateral amygdala is needed for goal-directed behavior.
“The basolateral amygdala (BLA) is also needed for goal-directed behavior29.”
From A dual-pathway architecture for stress to disrupt agency and promote habit (2025) · cites this paper as [29]
BLA lesion or BLA/DMS disconnection disrupts goal-directed behavior.
“BLA→DMS pathway function in action-outcome learning is consistent with evidence that BLA lesion or BLA/DMS disconnection disrupts goal-directed behavior29,48,49.”
From A dual-pathway architecture for stress to disrupt agency and promote habit (2025) · cites this paper as [29]
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References 51 · Cited by 355
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Everitt BJ, Robbins TW (1992) Amygdala-ventral striatal interactions and reward-related processes. In: The amygdala: neurobiological aspects of emotion, memory, and mental dysfunction (Aggleton JP, ed), pp 401- 429). New York: Wiley.
- Authors
- Balleine, B. W., Killcross, A. S., & Dickinson, A.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2003-01-15
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 666-675
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC6741878
- OpenAlex
- W2168447210
- Cited by
- 355
- References
- 51
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 9.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- European Commission
- National Institute of Mental Health (R29MH056446, MH56446, R01MH056446)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- basolateral amygdala, amygdala lesions, operant conditioning, sensory-specific satiety, outcome devaluation, action-outcome contingency, food reward, operant discrimination
- MeSH terms
- Amygdala, Analysis of Variance, Animals, Association Learning, Behavior, Animal, Conditioning, Operant, Discrimination Learning, Extinction, Psychological, Male, Rats, Inbred Strains, Reinforcement, Psychology, Reward, Satiety Response, Rats
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