George A. Cicala
Professor 
Ph.D., Princeton University, 1960
cicala@udel.edu
Department of Psychology
Phone: Office (302) 831-1176: Fax (302) 831-3645
Office: Room 224E Wolf Hall
Research Interests
Dr. Cicala is an animal behavior psychologist who joined the University
in 1961 after completing a year of postdoctoral study at Princeton. Evidence
is rapidly accruing to suggest that intracellular biochemical events are
important in the formation of associations critical to many forms of adaptive
learning. Much of this evidence has been derived from experiments which
demonstrate the deleterious effects on common learning tasks of antagonizing,
chemically, the synthesis of excitatory amino acids. More recently it has
been shown that the nitric oxide synthesis is critical to associative learning
and serves neurotransmission functions. The role of nitric oxide synthesis
inhibitors, both reversible and irreversible on the learning of a variety
of behavioral tasks should help to understand its role in adaptive learning.
We have also, recently, began to study genetic differences in the facility
with which rats learn in the avoidance conditioning situation.
Relevant Publications
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Azorlosa, J. L., Cicala, G. A., & Herdegen, R. T. (1990). Stimulus
modality produced differences in aversive classical conditioning. Learning
and Motivation, 21, 299-315.
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Cicala, G. A., Azorlosa, J. L., Estall, L. B., & Grant, S. J. (1990).
Endogenous opioids interfere with Pavlovian second-order fear conditioning.
Psychol. Sci., 1(5), 312-314.
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Estall, L. B., Grant, S. J., & Cicala, G. A. (1993). Inhibition of
nitric oxide (No) production selectively impairs learning and memory in
the rat. Pharmacol. Biochem. & Behav., 46(4), 959-962.
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