Paired light and foot shock in 12 pigeons rapidly developed acceleratory heart and respiratory conditioned responses. Sensitization and stimulus control birds did not condition. When a different colored stimulus light that was not reinforced was mixed in a random series with the reinforced light, rapid differentiation of both heart and respiratory responses occurred. In most cases neither heart nor respiratory conditioned responses could be extinguished by 100 non-reinforced presentations of the conditioned stimulus.

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Development of a vertebrate experimental model for cellular neurophysiologic studies of learning.

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Effect of avian basal forebrain lesions, including septum, on heart rate conditioning.

The possible involvement of basal telencephalic structures in visually conditioned heart rate change (established by pairing light and foot-shock) was studied in 156 pigeons by evaluating conditioning performance following lesions of the septum or lobus parolfactorius. Extensive destruction of the septal complex had no effect on either the orienting response or the development of the conditioned response. Lesions of the lobus parolfactorius did not affect the orienting response or overall conditioned response levels, but it did slightly prolong the latency of the conditioned heart rate change. It is concluded that the septum, despite its being cardioactive, is not involved in conditioned heart rate change and that the lobus parolfactorius participates minimally. Thus, of the principal limbic structures of the avian telencephalon, only the amygdalar homologue appears critical in this defensive conditioning task [3].

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