An Inescapable Cat Odor Exposure Protocol for Studying Innate and Contextual Threat Conditioning in RatsMaría Rodríguez 1,2, Marco Contreras 3, Marcos Domic-Siede 4, Francisco Ceric 5, Fernando Torrealba 1
1Departamento de Fisiología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2Instituto de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de O'Higgins, 3Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, 4Escuela de Psicología, Universidad Católica del Norte, 5Laboratorio de Neurociencia Afectiva, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del Desarrollo
Cat skin/fur odor exposure provides a reliable method to investigate neural circuits and mechanisms of defensive responses in rodents and may offer insight into mechanisms that mediate fear in humans. Here, we describe a protocol for investigating the role of the interoceptive cortex in threat responses in rats.
