Open AccessContext pre-exposure obscures amygdala modulation of contextual-fear conditioning
Author(s) -
Nicole Huff,
Karli Wright-Hardesty,
Emily A. Higgins,
Patricia Matus-Amat,
Jerry W. Rudy
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
learning and memory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.228
H-Index - 136
eISSN - 1549-5485
pISSN - 1072-0502
DOI - 10.1101/lm.6705
Subject(s) - amygdala , muscimol , basolateral amygdala , fear conditioning , psychology , conditioning , fear processing in the brain , context (archaeology) , neuroscience , classical conditioning , context dependent memory , freezing behavior , memory consolidation , extinction (optical mineralogy) , context effect , cognitive psychology , latent inhibition , developmental psychology , hippocampus , cognition , chemistry , medicine , biology , philosophy , mathematics , word (group theory) , linguistics , receptor , gabaa receptor , paleontology , statistics , free recall , mineralogy
We report that post-training inactivation of basolateral amygdala region (BLA) with muscimol impaired memory for contextual-fear conditioning (as measured by freezing) and intra-BLA norepinephrine enhanced this memory. However, pre-exposure to the context eliminated both of these effects. These findings provide a likely explanation of why an earler study failed to observe that the BLA modulates contextual fear conditioning-they pre-exposed their rats to the context. These results also suggest that the amygdala modulates the storage of the context fear memory and may do so by influencing the storage of the representation of the context in which the shock occurred.
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