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Neuroscience of Pavlovian Conditioning: A Brief Review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

Luis Aguado
Luis Aguado*
Affiliation:
Complutense University of Madrid
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Luis Aguado, Departamento de Psicología Básica I, Facultad de Psicología, Campus de Somosaguas, 28223 – Madrid (Spain). E-mail: psbas17@sis.ucm.es
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Abstract

Current knowledge on the neuronal substrates of Pavlovian conditioning in animals and man is briefly reviewed. First, work on conditioning in aplysia, that has showed amplified pre-synaptic facilitation as the basic mechanism of associative learning, is summarized. Then, two exemplars of associative learning in vertebrates, fear conditioning in rodents and eyelid conditioning in rabbits, are described and research into its neuronal substrates discussed. Research showing the role of the amygdala in fear conditioning and of the cerebellum in eyelid conditioning is reviewed, both at the circuit and cellular plasticity levels. Special attention is given to the parallelism suggested by this research between the neuronal mechanisms of conditioning and the principles of formal learning theory. Finally, recent evidence showing a similar role of the amygdala and of the cerebellum in human Pavlovian conditioning is discussed.

El artículo revisa brevemente los conocimientos actuales acerca de los substratos neuronales del condicionamiento pavloviano en los animales y en el hombre. En primer lugar, se resume la investigación sobre condicionamiento en aplysias, que ha demostrado la importancia de la facilitación sináptica amplificada como mecanismo básico del aprendizaje asociativo. A continuación, se describen dos ejemplos de aprendizaje asociativo en vertebrados, el condicionamiento del miedo en roedores y el condicionamiento del parpadeo en conejos, con referencias a la investigación sobre sus substratos neuronales. Se revisa la investigación que muestra el papel de la amígdala en el condicionamiento del miedo y del cerebelo en el condicionamiento del parpadeo, al nivel tanto de circuitos como de la plasticidad celular. Se presta especial atención a los paralelismos que esta área de investigación sugiere entre los mecanismos neuronales del condicionamiento y los principios de las teorías formales del aprendizaje. Por último, se comentan diversas pruebas recientes que demuestran un papel semejante de la amígdala y del cerebelo en el condicionamiento pavloviano humano.

Keywords

Pavlovian conditioningneural mechanismslearning theoriescondicionamiento pavlovianomecanismos neuralesteorias del aprendizaje
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 6 , Issue 2: Special Issue: A Century of Pavlovian Theory: The Madrid Lecture (Pavlov, 1903) , November 2003 , pp. 155 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2003

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