Ventral tegmental area and relief learning: Dopamine neurons projecting to the nucleus accumbens are activated by electric stimuli used to induce relief learning (A,B). Local chemogenetic inacti-vation of the terminals of these projection neurons blocks relief learning (C).

Behavioral paradigms: Animals are exposed to emotionally-relevant stimuli (A) and cues associated with on- or offset of such stimuli can be learned (e.g., fear conditioning). Learned or innate emotionally-relevant stimuli modulate behavior. For example, fear-inducing stimuli can potentiate startle magnitude (B), are avoided (C), reduce sociability (D) and induce alarm calls (E).

Institut I :

Medizinische Fakultät