Topic: conditioned punishment

Aversive events in our environment shape our behaviours. Instrumental behaviours are punished when an action results in an aversive event. Yet there are instances where behaviours appear inappropriately sensitive to potential threats. The neural underpinnings of these inappropriate behaviours are poorly understood. In a conditioned punishment task, we trained rats to press two levers for pellets. Their responding suppressed on one lever when it also earned a conditioned stimulus (CS+) that was paired with a footshock, whilst responding continued on the other lever that earned a neutral conditi