Cornering the fear engram: long-term synaptic changes in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala after fear conditioning.

Full Abstract

Use-dependent synaptic modifications in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala (LA) have been suggested to be the cellular analog of memory trace after pavlovian fear conditioning. However, whether neurophysiological changes in the LA are produced as a direct consequence of associative learning awaits additional proof. Using microstimulation of the medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus as the conditioned stimulus (CS), we demonstrated that contingent pairings of the brain-stimulation CS and a footshock unconditioned stimulus lead to enhanced synaptic efficacy in the thalamic input to the LA, supporting the hypothesis that localized synaptic alterations underlie fear memory formation.

Author information

Author/s: Kwon, Jeong-Tae (JT); Choi, June-Seek (JS);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul 136-701, Korea.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience (J Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Aug; vol 29 (issue 31) : pp 9700-3

Dates: Created 2009/08/06; Completed 2009/08/21;

PMID: 19657022, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 8/21/2009, IMS Date: )

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