Amygdalo-striatal interaction in the enhancement of stimulus salience in associative learning.

Function of the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) is critical to 2 aspects of attention in associative learning: the conditioning of orienting responses (ORs) to cues paired with food, and the enhancement of cue salience by the surprising omission of expected events. Such salience enhancements have been found to depend on interactions within a circuit that includes CeA, the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc), the substantia innominata (SI), and the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). The acquisition and expression of conditioned ORs requires interactions among CeA, SNc, and the dorsal lateral striatum (DLS), but not SI or PPC.