Latent inhibition is disrupted by nucleus accumbens shell lesion but is abnormally persistent following entire nucleus accumbens lesion: The neural site controlling the expression and disruption of the stimulus preexposure effect

Latent inhibition (LI) is the proactive interference of repeated nonreinforced preexposure to a stimulus with subsequent performance on a learning task involving that stimulus. The present experiments investigated the role of the nucleus accumbens (NAC) in LI. LI was measured in a thirst motivated conditioned emotional response procedure with low or high number of conditioning trials, and in two-way active avoidance procedure with the stages of preexposure and conditioning taking place in the same or different contexts. Sham-lesioned rats showed LI with low but not high number of conditioning trials and if preexposure and conditioning took place in the same context but not if the context was changed between the stages. Lesion to the shell subregion of the NAC disrupted LI but LI was preserved in rats with a combined lesion to the NAC shell and core subregions. Moreover, rats with a combined shell-core lesion persisted in showing LI in spite of high number of conditioning trials and in spite of context change. These results show that the NAC is not essential for the acquisition of LI but rather plays a key role in regulating the expression of LI. Moreover, they suggest that the two subregions of the NAC contribute competitively and cooperatively to this process, selecting the response appropriate to the stimulus-no event or the stimulus-reinforcement association in conditioning.