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Fear Conditioning and Long‐term Potentiation in the Amygdala
Author(s) -
Sah P.,
Westbrook R. F.,
Lüthi A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1417.020
Subject(s) - long term potentiation , amygdala , neuroscience , fear conditioning , fear processing in the brain , psychology , synaptic plasticity , conditioning , excitatory postsynaptic potential , classical conditioning , memory consolidation , memory formation , mechanism (biology) , hippocampus , biology , physics , inhibitory postsynaptic potential , biochemistry , statistics , receptor , mathematics , quantum mechanics
The cellular mechanisms that underlie learning and memory formation remain one of the most intriguing unknowns about the mammalian brain. A plethora of experimental evidence over the last 30 years has established that long‐term synaptic plasticity at excitatory synapses is the most likely mechanism that underlies learning and memory formation. Experiments done largely in acute brain slices maintained in vitro have revealed many of the molecular mechanisms in the induction and maintenance of long‐term potentiation (LTP). However, evidence directly liking LTP with learning and memory formation has not been established. Pavlovian fear conditioning is a good candidate to provide such evidence. The relations between events that produce fear conditioning are simple; these relations and their fear products involve circuits in the amygdala that are well understood, as are those circuits in the amygdala that underlie LTP. The evidence that links LTP in the amygdala with fear conditioning is reviewed.