Figure 3.

The effects of BLA/DH disconnection on subsequent cocaine seeking are memory reactivation-dependent. (A) Schematic depicting the timeline for Experiment 2. The procedure was identical to that used in Experiment 1 except that rats were exposed to a novel, unpaired context, instead of the cocaine-paired context, before receiving unilateral microinfusions of ANI (62.5 µg/0.5 µL) into the BLA plus B/M (1.0/0.01 mM/0.5 µL) into the contralateral DH, or VEH microinfusions into both brain regions. As in Experiment 1, following the intracranial manipulations, rats received additional extinction training until they reached the extinction criterion (≤25 active lever responses/session on two consecutive days). (B) Mean (±SEM) active lever presses during self-administration (SA; mean of the last three training sessions) and during tests for cocaine-seeking behavior in the extinction context (EXT; the last session preceding the test in the cocaine-paired context) and in the cocaine-paired context (COC-paired). (C) Mean (±SEM) inactive lever presses. (*) Significant difference relative to responding in the extinction context (ANOVA context main effect, P < 0.05).