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The amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex: partners in the fear circuit
Author(s) -
Marek Roger,
Strobel Cornelia,
Bredy Timothy W.,
Sah Pankaj
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jphysiol.2012.248575
Subject(s) - amygdala , fear conditioning , neuroscience , prefrontal cortex , fear processing in the brain , extinction (optical mineralogy) , psychology , biological neural network , memory consolidation , classical conditioning , cognitive psychology , conditioning , hippocampus , biology , cognition , paleontology , statistics , mathematics
Fear conditioning and fear extinction are Pavlovian conditioning paradigms extensively used to study the mechanisms that underlie learning and memory formation. The neural circuits that mediate this learning are evolutionarily conserved, and seen in virtually all species from flies to humans. In mammals, the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex are two structures that play a key role in the acquisition, consolidation and retrieval of fear memory, as well extinction of fear. These two regions have extensive bidirectional connections, and in recent years, the neural circuits that mediate fear learning and fear extinction are beginning to be elucidated. In this review, we provide an overview of our current understanding of the neural architecture within the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex. We describe how sensory information is processed in these two structures and the neural circuits between them thought to mediate different aspects of fear learning. Finally, we discuss how changes in circuits within these structures may mediate fear responses following fear conditioning and extinction.