Classical eyeblink conditioning depends on an identified brainstem-cerebellar circuit. The cerebellar cortexhas been shown to play a significant role in the learned timing of the classically conditioned eyeblinkresponse. The proposed research will test the hypothesis that differences in conditioned response timingacross ontogeny correlate with maturation of the cerebellum and are sensitive to cerebellar damageproduced by neonatal alcohol exposure. Two complex timing tasks - ISI discrimination and temporaluncertainty - will be used at different points across development in two experiments. Experiment 1 willattempt to identify the age at which the poorer CR-timing that we've seen in younger rats develops into themore appropriate, well-timed responses seen in adults. Experiment 2 will attempt to identify whether CR-timing is disrupted by neonatal ethanol exposure under conditions that are known to target the cerebellum.
This aim will ask whether doses of ethanol lower than those shown to affect gross CR performance arecapable of leading to more subtle deficits in CR timing. Experiment 3 will examine cerebellar cell counts inrats from Experiment 2 to confirm cerebellar targeting and examine correlations with behavioral effects.
| Brown, Kevin L; Burman, Michael A; Duong, Huan B et al. (2009) Neonatal binge alcohol exposure produces dose dependent deficits in interstimulus interval discrimination eyeblink conditioning in juvenile rats. Brain Res 1248:162-75 |
| Brown, Kevin L; Stanton, Mark E (2008) Cross-modal transfer of the conditioned eyeblink response during interstimulus interval discrimination training in young rats. Dev Psychobiol 50:647-64 |
| Brown, Kevin L; Calizo, Lyngine H; Stanton, Mark E (2008) Dose-dependent deficits in dual interstimulus interval classical eyeblink conditioning tasks following neonatal binge alcohol exposure in rats. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 32:277-93 |
