Researchers in behavioural neuroscience in the School of Psychology have interests in the behavioural and brain mechanisms of learning, memory, and motivation. This research is conducted from behavioural, developmental, neurobiological, and computational perspectives. Current projects include the behavioural and neural mechanisms of fear learning and extinction learning, error-correction learning, infantile amnesia, and relapse to drug-seeking.

Our laboratories are equipped with facilities for studying Pavlovian appetitive conditioning, Pavlovian aversive conditioning, eyeblink and heart-rate conditioning, spatial learning, instrumental conditioning, somatosensory processing, anxiety, feeding, taste-reactivity, and locomotor activity. We also have facilities for surgery, immunohistochemistry, ELISA, in situ hybridisation, tissue storage, bright field and fluorescent microscopy, image analysis, in vivo microdialysis for measurement of biogenic amines and amino acids, radiotelemetry of physiological parameters such as core body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and electrophysiological recordings of nerve cells via a NeuraLynx high density recording system.

Ehsan Arabzadeh
Neural Coding; Rat whisker-barrel system. Psychophysics of touch, vision and multi-sensory integration.

Jacquelyn Cranney
Neural and associative bases of habituation, sensitisation and fear in rats and in humans. Neural correlates of information processing in humans (normal and brain-damaged).

E. James Kehoe
Attentional, perceptual, and timing processes in associative learning, extinction learning-to-learn, and transfer of training. Neural network models. Application of the principles of human cognition to instructional design and decision making.

Gavan P. McNally
Behavioural Neuroscience

Rick Richardson
Development of emotion, attention, learning, and memory in the rat. Behavioural and neural analyses of memory. Hormonal modulation of memory. Olfaction and olfactory learning.

R. F. Westbrook
Behavioural and neural investigations of elementary learning processes.

Blatchford, K.E., Diamond, K., Westbrook, R.F., & McNally, G.P. (2005). Increased vulnerability to stress following opiate exposures: Behavioural and autonomic correlates. Behavioral Neuroscience, 119, 1034-1041.

Bouton, M. E., Westbrook, R. F., Corcoran, K., & Maren, S. (2006). Contextual and temporal modulation of extinction: behavioural and biological mechanisms. Biological Psychiatry, in press.

Davis, M., Ressler, K., Rothbaum, B.O., & Richardson, R. (2006). Effects of D-cycloserine: Translation from preclinical to clinical work. Biological Psychiatry, in press.

Harris, J. A., Bailey, G., Jones, M., & Westbrook, R. F. (2000). Contextual control over conditioned responding in an extinction paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 26, 174-185.

Iordanova, M. D., McNally, G. P., & Westbrook, R. F. (2006). Opioid receptors in the nucleus accumbens regulate attentional learning in the blocking paradigm. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 4036 – 4045.

Kehoe, E.J., Weidemann, G., Dartnall, S. (2004). Apparatus exposure produces profound declines in conditioned nictitating-membrane responses to discrete conditioned stimuli by the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 30, 259-270.

Kehoe, E.J., & White, N.E. (2004). Overexpectation: response loss during sustained stimulus compounding in the rabbit nictitating membrane preparation.
Learning & Memory, 11, 476-483.

Kehoe, E.J., & Joscelyne, A. (2005). Temporally specific extinction of conditioned responses in the rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) nictitating membrane preparation.
Behavioral Neuroscience, 119, 1011-1122.

Kim, J.H., McNally, G., & Richardson, R. (2006). Recovery of Fear Memories in Rats: Role of GABA in Infantile Amnesia. Behavioral Neuroscience, 120, 40-48.

Ledgerwood, L., Richardson, R., & Cranney, J. (2005). D-Cycloserine facilitates extinction of learned fear: Effects on reacquisition and generalized extinction. Biological Psychiatry, 57, 841-847.

Ledgerwood, L., Richardson, R., & Cranney, J. (2004). D-Cycloserine and the facilitation of extinction of conditioned fear: Consequences for reinstatement. Behavioral Neuroscience, 118, 505-513.

Ledgerwood L, Richardson R, Cranney J. (2003). Effects of D-cycloserine on extinction of conditioned freezing. Behavioral Neuroscience, 117, 341-349.

McNally, G.P., Pigg, M., & Weidemann, G. (2004). Opioid receptors in the midbrain periaqueductal gray matter regulate the extinction of Pavlovian fear conditioning. The Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 6912-6919.

McNally, G.P., Lee, B., Chiem, J.Y., & Choi, E.A. (2005). The midbrain periaqueductal gray and fear extinction. Opioid receptor subtype and roles of cAMP, protein kinase A, and mitogen-activated protein kinase. Behavioral Neuroscience, 119, 1023-1033.

McNally, G.P., & Westbrook, R.F. (2006). A short intertrial interval facilitates acquisition of context-conditioned fear and a short retention interval facilitates its expression. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 32, 164-172.

McNally, G.P. & Cole, S. (2006). -opioid receptors in the midbrain periaqueductal gray regulate predictive error during Pavlovian fear conditioning. Behavioral Neuroscience, in press.

Morris, R.W., Westbrook, R. F., & Killcross, A. S. (2005). Reinstatement of extinguished fear by beta -adrenergic arousal elicited by a conditioned context. Behavioral Neuroscience, 119. 1662-1671.

Richardson, R., Ledgerwood, L., & Cranney, J. (2004). Facilitation of Fear Extinction by D-Cycloserine: Theoretical and Clinical Implications. Learning & Memory, 11, 510-516.

Richardson, R. & Fan, M. (2002). Behavioral Expression of Conditioned Fear in Rats is Appropriate to their Age at Training, not their Age at Testing. Animal Learning & Behavior, 30, 394-404.

Weidemann G, Kehoe EJ. (2005). Stimulus specificity of concurrent recovery in the rabbit nictitating membrane response. Learning & Behavior, 33, 343-362.

Weidemann, G., Kehoe, E.J. (2004). Recovery of the rabbit's conditioned nictitating membrane response without direct reinforcement after extinction. Learning & Behavior, 32, 409-426.

Westbrook, R. F., Iordanova, M., McNally, G. P., Richardson, R., & Harris, J. A. (2002). Reinstatement of fear to an extinguished conditioned stimulus: Two roles for context. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 28, 97-110.

Yap, C.S., Stapinski, L., & Richardson, R. (2005). Behavioral Expression of Learned Fear: Updating of Early Memories. Behavioral Neuroscience, 119, 1467-1476.