Analysis of motivational processes in mice with a deletion of the GluR-1 AMPA receptor subunit.

Johnson, Alexander. 2005. Analysis of motivational processes in mice with a deletion of the GluR-1 AMPA receptor subunit. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

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Abstract

The experiments in this thesis evaluated the proposal that GluR-1-/- mice display impairments in affective and motivational processes (Mead & Stephens, 2003a). The introductory experiments examined sensorimotor and affective aspects of behaviour in GluR-1-/- and wild-type control mice (Chapter 2). These studies attempted to evaluate any performance-based behavioural impairment which may have interfered with learning. Chapter 3 assessed BLA-dependent learning on a Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm (e.g., LeDoux, Sakaguchi & Reis, 1986). The simple nature of this learning task, and the large body of evidence implicating the amygdala in this form of learning provided an opportunity to examine the influence of the GluR-1 mutation on emotional learning (Maren, 2000a; Cardinal et al., 2002). Chapters 4 and 5 made use of separate Pavlovian and instrumental preparations which characterised different affective and sensory-specific associatively activated outcome representations (Blundell, Hall & Killcross, 2001; Balleine, Dickinson & Killcross, 2003; Corbit & Balleine, 2005). The results are discussed in respect to a failure of GluR-1-/- mice to attribute affective and motivational incentive value to the sensory-specific properties of a US an account which furthers that proposed by Mead and Stephens.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
ISBN:	9781303174544
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2017 15:23
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/54293

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