Associating sensory cues with aversive outcomes is a relatively basic process shared across species.

In associative learning, animals learn to associate external cues or their own actions with appetitive or aversive outcomes.

We recorded the activity of VTA neurons while mice associated different odour cues with appetitive and aversive outcomes.

Basal amygdala (BA) neurons guide associative learning via acquisition of responses to stimuli that predict salient appetitive or aversive outcomes.