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Optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory

In Pavlovian fear conditioning, the lateral amygdala (LA) has been highlighted as a key brain site for association between sensory cues and aversive stimuli. However, learning-related changes are also found in upstream sensory regions such as thalamus and cortex. To isolate the essential neural circ...

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Autores principales: Kwon, Jeong-Tae, Nakajima, Ryuichi, Kim, Hyung-Su, Jeong, Yire, Augustine, George J., Han, Jin-Hee
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4201812/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25322798
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/lm.035816.114
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author Kwon, Jeong-Tae
Nakajima, Ryuichi
Kim, Hyung-Su
Jeong, Yire
Augustine, George J.
Han, Jin-Hee
author_facet Kwon, Jeong-Tae
Nakajima, Ryuichi
Kim, Hyung-Su
Jeong, Yire
Augustine, George J.
Han, Jin-Hee
author_sort Kwon, Jeong-Tae
collection PubMed
description In Pavlovian fear conditioning, the lateral amygdala (LA) has been highlighted as a key brain site for association between sensory cues and aversive stimuli. However, learning-related changes are also found in upstream sensory regions such as thalamus and cortex. To isolate the essential neural circuit components for fear memory association, we tested whether direct activation of presynaptic sensory inputs in LA, without the participation of upstream activity, is sufficient to form fear memory in mice. Photostimulation of axonal projections from the two main auditory brain regions, the medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus and the secondary auditory cortex, was paired with aversive footshock. Twenty-four hours later the same photostimulation induced robust conditioned freezing and this fear memory formation was disrupted when glutamatergic synaptic transmission was locally blocked in the LA. Therefore, our results prove for the first time that synapses between sensory input areas and the LA, previously implicated as a crucial brain site for fear memory formation, actually are sufficient to serve as a conditioned stimulus. Our results strongly support the idea that the LA may be sufficient to encode and store associations between neutral cue and aversive stimuli during natural fear conditioning as a critical part of a broad fear memory engram.
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spelling pubmed-42018122015-11-01 Optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory Kwon, Jeong-Tae Nakajima, Ryuichi Kim, Hyung-Su Jeong, Yire Augustine, George J. Han, Jin-Hee Learn Mem Research In Pavlovian fear conditioning, the lateral amygdala (LA) has been highlighted as a key brain site for association between sensory cues and aversive stimuli. However, learning-related changes are also found in upstream sensory regions such as thalamus and cortex. To isolate the essential neural circuit components for fear memory association, we tested whether direct activation of presynaptic sensory inputs in LA, without the participation of upstream activity, is sufficient to form fear memory in mice. Photostimulation of axonal projections from the two main auditory brain regions, the medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus and the secondary auditory cortex, was paired with aversive footshock. Twenty-four hours later the same photostimulation induced robust conditioned freezing and this fear memory formation was disrupted when glutamatergic synaptic transmission was locally blocked in the LA. Therefore, our results prove for the first time that synapses between sensory input areas and the LA, previously implicated as a crucial brain site for fear memory formation, actually are sufficient to serve as a conditioned stimulus. Our results strongly support the idea that the LA may be sufficient to encode and store associations between neutral cue and aversive stimuli during natural fear conditioning as a critical part of a broad fear memory engram. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 2014-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4201812/ /pubmed/25322798 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/lm.035816.114 Text en © 2014 Kwon et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the first 12 months after the full-issue publication date (see http://learnmem.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After 12 months, it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
spellingShingle Research
Kwon, Jeong-Tae
Nakajima, Ryuichi
Kim, Hyung-Su
Jeong, Yire
Augustine, George J.
Han, Jin-Hee
Optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory
title Optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory
title_full Optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory
title_fullStr Optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory
title_full_unstemmed Optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory
title_short Optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory
title_sort optogenetic activation of presynaptic inputs in lateral amygdala forms associative fear memory
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4201812/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25322798
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/lm.035816.114
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