G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are especially critical when considering how neural circuits orchestrate behavior. However, whereas there is extensive research on how these important sites of plasticity relay information between each other, less is known about the molecular substrates and mechanisms involved in mediating this connectivity, and ultimately in behavior. Moreover, the advent of new technologies enabling the identification of specific cell-types and circuits have further refined our understanding on the circuit-level substrates involved in aversive learning. The use of well-established behavioral paradigms, coupled with classical electrophysiological, histological and lesioning approaches have led to the implication of multiple brain regions in encoding negative affective states. Such aversive learning is studied in the laboratory using pavlovian conditioning by associating a cue or context to noxious stimuli and testing the manifestation of learned aversive responses to the cue or context. Innate responses (such as freezing to a foot-shock) are initiated rapidly, but animals must learn to associate the noxious stimuli with the context in which they are encountered, thereby shaping future responses to similar situations. Animals encounter multiple, aversive stimuli in their environment. Learning to make adaptive responses in response to salient stimuli is key to survival.
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