Role of human prefrontal cortex in the modulation of conditioned eyeblink responses.

Role of human prefrontal cortex in the modulation of conditioned eyeblink responses. Behav Brain Res. 2019 Jun 15;:112027 Authors: Nardone R, Langthaler PB, Höller Y, Golaszewski S, Versace V, Sebastianelli L, Brigo F, Saltuari L, Trinka E Abstract Classical conditioning of the eyeblink reflex (EBC) is a simple form of associative motor learning. EBC is heavily dependent on cerebellar function, but experimental studies also suggest that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) orchestrates a neuronal network which interacts with the cerebellum to mediate the conditioned eyeblink responses (CR). To further investigate the role of PFC for EBC in humans, we aimed in this study at assessing whether acquisition of CR can be modulated by focal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) given as theta burst stimulation (TBS) over the dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC). A standard delay conditioning paradigm with a 540 ms tone as conditioned stimulus (CS) coterminating with a 100 ms air puff as unconditioned stimulus (US) was used in a total of 60 healthy subjects (35 female, 25 male, mean age 28.4 ± 2.4 years). One hundred paired CS-US trials and 30 extinction CS alone trials were given. TBS was applied over the DLPFC ipsilaterally to the US during the acquisition phase. Subjects were randomly assigned to three groups (n = 20) using excitatory intermittent TBS (iTBS), inhibitory continuous TBS (cTBS) or sham stimulation. CR acquisition was ...
Source: Behavioural Brain Research - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Behav Brain Res Source Type: research