Exploration and avoidance in rats with lesions in amygdala and piriform cortex.

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Abstract
Lesions localized to specific areas of the amygdala and overlying cortex in rats produced differential effects in several behavioral tasks. Three different types of lesions were tested: central, basolateral and cortex lateral to the amygdala. Lesions restricted to the central nucleus produced increased activity on all parameters studied in an open-field test, but the other 2 groups were not changed. In 1-way active avoidance all 3 groups with lesions showed deficits. The most pronounced change was observed in the central group. All groups showed the same degree of retention loss, but in forced extinction of 1-way active avoidance after retraining the cortical and basolateral groups were most defective. A fear-reduction hypothesis was proposed for the central lesion. The basolateral and cortical areas may be more specifically involved in passive avoidance behavior.

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