Publications by authors named "L Malkova"
Objective: Area tempestas, a functionally defined region in the anterior piriform cortex, was identified as a crucial ictogenic trigger zone in the rat brain in the 1980s. However, whether the primate piriform cortex can trigger seizures remains unknown. Here, in a nonhuman primate model, we aimed to localize a similar trigger zone in the piriform cortex and, subsequently, evaluated the ability of focal inhibition of the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNpr) to suppress the evoked seizures.
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- Unconditioned defense responses to looming threats include freezing and fleeing behaviors observed in rodents, with this study focusing on freezing without an escape route.
- A modified looming threat task revealed that both male and female rats exhibited specific freezing responses before, during, and after the threat, indicating a prolonged reaction to the stimulus.
- The research also found that the use of certain GABA-A receptor modulators affected freezing behavior differently based on the sex of the rats, highlighting the need for further exploration of treatments for anxiety that persist beyond immediate threat exposure.
Serotonin signaling plays critical roles in social and emotional behaviors. Likewise, decades of research demonstrate that the amygdala is a prime modulator of social behavior. Permanent excitotoxic lesions and transient amygdala inactivation consistently increase social behaviors in non-human primates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a central component of the brain circuitry that mediates motivated behavior, including reward processing. Since the rewarding properties of social stimuli have a vital role in guiding behavior (both in humans and nonhuman animals), the NAc is likely to contribute to the brain circuitry controlling social behavior. In rodents, prior studies have found that focal pharmacological inhibition of NAc and/or elevation of dopamine in NAc increases social interactions.
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- Research highlights the crucial role of the hippocampus in spatial memory, particularly in navigating through spaces, as evidenced by deficits observed in various species including rodents and humans when the hippocampus is damaged.
- The study specifically examines the Hamilton Search Task (HST), revealing that male rhesus macaques with hippocampal lesions performed poorly compared to control animals, indicating that the hippocampus is essential for this non-navigational spatial memory task.
- The findings suggest that the HST is a valuable tool for assessing hippocampal function in non-human primates, and they address inconsistencies in previous research that found minimal effects of hippocampal damage on spatial memory.