BACKGROUND: The avoidance of aversive stimuli through negative reinforcement learning, which demands dynamic responding to both positive and negative stimuli that often conflict with each other, is critical for survival in real-world environments. Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder commonly exhibit impaired negative reinforcement and extinction, perhaps involving deficits in amygdala functioning. The intercalated nuclei of the amygdala (ITC) is an amygdala subregion of particular interest that has been linked to negative reinforcement and extinction, with distinct clusters mediating separate aspects of behavior. This study focuses on the dorsal ITC cluster (ITC METHODS: We investigated the impact of ITC RESULTS: We found impaired neural activity in the ITC CONCLUSIONS: Sapap3-null mice failed to extinguish avoidant behavior in platform-mediated avoidance due to heightened ITC