The present experiment was designed to determine if the absence of an auditory cue (i.e., a "tone-off" cue) would be an effective conditioned stimulus (CS) for delay eyeblink conditioning and to test if the medial geniculate nucleus (MGN) is part of the sensory pathway for tone-off conditioning. Rats were given paired or unpaired delay eyeblink conditioning to examine if responding to a tone-off CS was due to an associative process. An inactivation technique was performed on a separate group of rats to determine if the MGN is needed to express tone-off conditioning. The results showed that rats given paired conditioning acquired robust conditioned eyeblink responses (CRs) compared with rats given unpaired conditioning and that expression of tone-off elicited CRs was impaired when the MGN was inactivated. The findings suggest that tone-on and tone-off eyeblink conditioning may share a common neural pathway. (PsycINFO Database Record

中文翻译：

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听觉提示缺失作为延迟眨眼条件的条件刺激。

本实验旨在确定是否存在听觉提示（即“音调关闭”提示）是否是延迟眨眼条件的有效条件刺激（CS），并测试内侧膝状体核（MGN）是否音调调节的感觉途径的一部分。给大鼠配对或不配对的延迟眨眼条件，以检查对音调减弱CS的响应是否是由于联想过程引起的。在另一组大鼠上进行了灭活技术，以确定是否需要MGN来表达音调调节。结果表明，与未配对条件配对的大鼠相比，配对条件配对的大鼠具有较强的条件眨眼反应（CRs），并且当MGN失活时，音调诱发的CR的表达受到损害。这些发现表明，音调眨眼调节可能共享一个共同的神经通路。（PsycINFO数据库记录