FUNCTIONAL MAPPING OF HUMAN LEARNING - A POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHYACTIVATION STUDY OF EYEBLINK CONDITIONING

Citation
Ta. Blaxton et al., FUNCTIONAL MAPPING OF HUMAN LEARNING - A POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHYACTIVATION STUDY OF EYEBLINK CONDITIONING, The Journal of neuroscience, 16(12), 1996, pp. 4032-4040
Citations number
67
Categorie Soggetti
Neurosciences,Neurosciences
Journal title
ISSN journal
02706474
Volume
16
Issue
12
Year of publication
1996
Pages
4032 - 4040
Database
ISI
SICI code
0270-6474(1996)16:12<4032:FMOHL->2.0.ZU;2-V
Abstract
Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured using positron emissi on tomography during eyeblink conditioning in young adults. Subjects w ere scanned in three experimental conditions: delay conditioning, in w hich binaural tones preceded air puffs to the right eye by 400 msec; p seudoconditioning, in which presentations of tone and air puff stimuli were not correlated in time; and fixation rest, which served as a bas eline control. Compared with fixation, pseudoconditioning produced rCB F increases in frontal and temporal cortex, basal ganglia, left hippoc ampal formation, and pens. Learning-specific activations were observed in conditioning as compared with pseudoconditioning in bilateral fron tal cortex, left thalamus, right medial hippocampal formation, left li ngual gyrus, pens, and bilateral cerebellum; decreases in rCBF were ob served for bilateral temporal cortex, and in the right hemisphere in p utamen, cerebellum, and the lateral aspect of hippocampal formation. B lood flow increased as the level of learning increased in the left hem isphere in caudate, hippocampal formation, fusiform gyrus, and cerebel lum, and in right temporal cortex and pens. In contrast, activation in left frontal cortex decreased as learning increased. These functional imaging results implicate many of the same structures identified by p revious lesion and recording studies of eyeblink conditioning in anima ls and humans and suggest that the same brain regions in animals and h umans mediate multiple forms of associative learning that give meaning to a previously neutral stimulus.