ABSTRACT
This book is devoted to describing how one mammalian brain, that of the rabbit, functions during the environmental pressures that cause associative learning to occur. This chapter describes the reflex system that mediates closure of the nictitating membrane (NM) when a potentially noxious stimulus impinges on the eye region of the face in that species. It is this reflex that has been used in behavioral studies as the unconditioned response (UCR) system for a variety of training procedures, notably classical conditioning.
