To examine the role of 5-HT6 receptors in the acquisition and persistence of habitual behavior, we manipulated 5-HT6 receptor expression in the DLS with herpes simplex virus vectors in combination with different behavioral procedures; control rats received a vector expressing enhanced green fluorescent

protein. In one set of experiments, rats were tested under conditions that favor the acquisition of either discrete action–outcome responding or repetitive responding; increased 5-HT6 receptor expression in selleck screening library DLS did not alter learning in either paradigm. In the next experiment, rats were over-trained on fixed- then variable-interval schedules, resulting in an escalation of lever pressing over sessions far in excess of that selleckchem necessary to receive sucrose pellets. After training, rats received viral vector infusion into the DLS. Subsequently, half of each group underwent an omission contingency training session in which they received reinforcement for refraining from pressing the lever, while the other half served as yoked controls. A probe session under extinction conditions was performed the following

day. Only rats that received both the 5-HT6 vector and omission contingency training showed reduced lever pressing during the probe session. These results suggest that increasing 5-HT6 receptor signaling in the DLS facilitates behavioral flexibility in the face of changing contingencies. “
“Music is a cultural universal and a rich part of the human experience.

However, little is known about common brain systems that support the processing and integration of extended, naturalistic ‘real-world’ music stimuli. We examined this question by presenting extended excerpts of symphonic music, and two pseudomusical stimuli in which the Non-specific serine/threonine protein kinase temporal and spectral structure of the Natural Music condition were disrupted, to non-musician participants undergoing functional brain imaging and analysing synchronized spatiotemporal activity patterns between listeners. We found that music synchronizes brain responses across listeners in bilateral auditory midbrain and thalamus, primary auditory and auditory association cortex, right-lateralized structures in frontal and parietal cortex, and motor planning regions of the brain. These effects were greater for natural music compared to the pseudo-musical control conditions. Remarkably, inter-subject synchronization in the inferior colliculus and medial geniculate nucleus was also greater for the natural music condition, indicating that synchronization at these early stages of auditory processing is not simply driven by spectro-temporal features of the stimulus. Increased synchronization during music listening was also evident in a right-hemisphere fronto-parietal attention network and bilateral cortical regions involved in motor planning.