Published September 19, 1969
| public
Journal Article
Unit Activity: Motivation-Dependent Responses from Midbrain Neurons
- Creators
- Phillips, M. Ian
- Olds, James
Chicago
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Abstract
Single neurons in the midbrain tegmentum of rats showed clear discriminatory responses to three tones announcing either food or water or no reinforcement. Subjects were required to press a single lever and remain motionless for 2 seconds during which time unit activity from several brain sites was recorded. One of the tones, randomly designated, was sounded halfway through this period. Manipulation of drive states revealed that the highest activity was associated with tones announcing the reinforcement for which the animal was most strongly motivated. Thus, from a hungry animal sustained or increased firing rates were elicited by a " food" tone and differentially lowered rates by the other tones.
Additional Information
© 1969 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 3 June 1969. The experiment was carried out while we were at the Brain Research Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan. Supported by grants from PHS. We thank P. J . Best and J. Rosenberg for computer programming and W. Allan, G. Baldrighi, W. Wetzel, and J. Frey for their technical assistance.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 62824
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20151211-151926584
- U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS)
- Created
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2015-12-12Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field