Jerzy Konorski on brain associations.

Jerzy Konorski (1903-1973) exerted a vital influence on the development of physiological psychology and neurobiology. Konorski and his friend and collaborator, Stefan Miller, distinguished instrumental conditioned reflexes as a separate type of acquired behavior, different from classical (Pavlovian) conditioned reflexes. In a series of pioneering studies Konorski demonstrated basic differences between the two types of conditioned reflexes.

Complex effects of NMDA receptor antagonist APV in the basolateral amygdala on acquisition of two-way avoidance reaction and long-term fear memory.

Although much has been learned about the role of the amygdala in Pavlovian fear conditioning, relatively little is known about an involvement of this structure in more complex aversive learning, such as acquisition of an active avoidance reaction. In the present study, rats with a pretraining injection of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, 2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (APV), into the basolateral amygdala (BLA) were found to be impaired in two-way active avoidance learning. During multitrial training in a shuttle box, the APV-injected rats were not different from the controls in sensitivity to shock or in acquisition of freezing to contextual cues.