Fig. 2.

6-OHDA lesions of the pmVTA blocked relief but not safety or fear learning. Rats were pmVTA-lesioned (see Fig. 1c and Supplementary Figure 3) and then submitted to relief, safety, and fear conditioning. In the retention tests, the startle paradigm was used to measure CS effects. The bar diagrams depict the mean startle magnitudes (±SEM) in startle alone and CS-startle trials, as well as their difference. a Relief learning was significantly blocked by pmVTA lesions (ANOVA: p = 0.004). ^#p = 0.013, post hoc Dunnett’s comparison with difference scores of the sham group. b In contrast, lesions did not affect safety conditioning (ANOVA: p = 0.80) or c fear conditioning (ANOVA: p = 0.86). **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05, post hoc Sydak’s multiple comparisons startle alone vs. CS-startle