Parkes Article

Question 1

What is the paper topic?

Answer 1

Incentive Memory: Evidence the Basolateral Amygdala Encodes and the Insular Cortex Retrieves Outcome Values to Guide Choice between Goal-Directed Actions

Question 2

What is Sensory Specific Satiety (SSS)?

Answer 2

The decline in pleasantness associated with a food as it is eaten relative to a food that has not been eaten

Question 3

What is the Basolateral Amygdala (BLA)?

Answer 3

Cortical structure in the limbic system, involved in the formation of emotionally relevant stimuli, encodes incentive value of stimuli

Question 4

What is the Insular Cortex (IC)?

Answer 4

Part of the dorsomedial striatum which receives input from associative areas, receives incentive value of stimuli from BLA, crucial in retrieval of incentive value during choice/decision

Question 5

What is the relationship between the BLA and IC?

Answer 5

Stimulation of BLA affects response in IC neurons

Question 6

What is the hypothesis?

Answer 6

The BLA encodes incentive values and communication between BLA and IC is needed to retrieve the values

Question 7

What were some of the methods?

Answer 7

Instrumental training, outcome devaluation, extinction test, consummatory preference test

Question 8

What were some of the results?

Answer 8

Specific satiety-induced outcome devaluation is linked to elevated Arc immunoreactivity in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and the insular cortex (IC). Blocking NMDAr transmission in the BLA impairs specific satiety-induced outcome devaluation before the devaluation, but NOT before the choice test. The connection is from BLA to IC and if BLA is impaired it would affect the retrieval of information in IC