Review
Neurosciences
Christine Stubbendorff, Carl W. Stevenson
Summary: Research has shown that dopamine plays a crucial role in regulating various contextual fear processes, although the related neurochemical mechanisms are still not fully understood. Understanding how dopamine regulates contextual fear can provide novel insights into the neurochemical modulation of neural circuit function underlying memory processing.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Lia P. Iglesias, Heliana B. Fernandes, Aline S. de Miranda, Malena M. Perez, Lucia H. Faccioli, Carlos A. Sorgi, Leandro J. Bertoglio, Daniele C. Aguiar, Carsten T. Wotjak, Fabricio A. Moreira
Summary: This study found that hippocampal TRPV1 channels play a role in the modulation of fear memories. Endocannabinoid signaling may mediate the effects of TRPV1 blockers. The intensity of the aversive stimulus affects the regulation of fear memories by TRPV1 channels. TRPV1 blockers also promote the transcription of specific genes, leading to a decrease in fear memory reinstatement.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Anastasia Olevska, Rainer Spanagel, Rick E. Bernardi
Summary: The Ras-ERK signaling pathway plays a crucial role in fear acquisition, with RasGRF2 contributing to contextual fear conditioning in mice. Knockout of RasGRF2 resulted in impaired acquisition of contextual fear, as evidenced by reduced freezing during fear conditioning and retention tests in comparison to wild type mice. This suggests that RasGRF2 is involved in contextual fear conditioning in an Ras-ERK-dependent manner.
NEUROBIOLOGY OF LEARNING AND MEMORY
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Abha K. Rajbhandari, Christopher J. Octeau, Sarah Gonzalez, Zachary T. Pennington, Farzanna Mohamed, Jeremy Trott, Jasmine Chavez, Erin Ngyuen, Natasha Keces, Weizhe Z. Hong, Rachael L. Neve, James Waschek, Baljit S. Khakh, Michael S. Fanselow
Summary: Trauma can lead to dysfunctional fear regulation and development of disorders like PTSD. Research in mice showed that the PACAPergic pathway can modulate fear and fear extinction. Selective deletion of PAC1 receptors in mICCs in females may affect fear acquisition, generalization, and extinction, with modulation dependent on behavioral state.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Anabel M. M. Miguelez Fernandez, Hanna M. Molla, Daniel R. Thomases, Kuei Y. Tseng
Summary: The study shows that disruption of prefrontal cortex (PFC) alpha 7nAChR signaling impacts hippocampal and amygdalar transmission, with significant effects observed in adult rats. Prefrontal infusion of MLA affects trace fear-conditioning and extinction in an age-dependent manner, potentially due to the late-adolescent maturation of ventral hippocampal-PFC functional connectivity and its modulation by alpha 7nAChR signaling.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Franklin B. Krasne, Raphael Zinn, Bryce Vissel, Michael S. Fanselow
Summary: The study focuses on the extinction of contextual fear in exposure therapy for fear disorders, introducing a new neurocomputational model BaconX. The model explains how contextual representations are formed and associated with fear, and predicts factors influencing successful extinction, such as session length and context change.
Article
Neurosciences
Stuart A. Williams, Miriam Gwilt, Rebecca Hock, Charlotte Taylor, Joanna Loayza, Carl W. Stevenson, Helen J. Cassaday, Tobias Bast
Summary: The neural disinhibition in the hippocampus disrupts fear conditioning and salience modulation, which are impaired in schizophrenia. This may be attributed to the disruption in neural processing within the hippocampus and its projection sites.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Mitjan Morr, Jeanine Noell, Daphne Sassin, Jule Daniels, Alexandra Philipsen, Benjamin Becker, Birgit Stoffel-Wagner, Rene Hurlemann, Dirk Scheele
Summary: Loneliness may contribute to vulnerability to intrusive memories after trauma in healthy men, with altered limbic processing of fear signals being a potential underlying mechanism. Lonely men showed more intrusions and altered amygdala activity, while loneliness did not have the same impact on women.
Review
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Giovanna Traina, Jack A. Tuszynski
Summary: This review provides an overview of the role that classical neurotransmitters play in the contextual conditioning model of fear and PTSD.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Ana Karla Oliveira Leite, Clarissa Penha Farias, Bianca Estefani Schmidt, Lucas Teixeira, Alessandra Schmitt Rieder, Cristiane R. G. Furini, Angela T. S. Wyse
Summary: This study investigated the effects of acute strength exercise on memory consolidation and found that exercise can promote the consolidation of weak memory. This effect is dependent on the activation of NMDA-receptors, and exercise also modulates the overexpression of BDNF and synapsin I through the activation of NMDA-receptors.
Article
Neurosciences
Satoshi Iwasaki, Yuji Ikegaya
Summary: This study demonstrates that precise activation of a specific neuron ensemble in the hippocampus is crucial for memory retrieval, while noisy activity of memory-irrelevant neurons can easily disrupt this process.
Article
Neurosciences
Min Soo Kang, Jin-Hee Han
Summary: The study suggests that the hippocampus receiving input from MEC plays a crucial role in the formation of contextual fear memory after learning. Optogenetic inhibition of MEC inputs within 5 minutes after learning reduces freezing behavior during retrieval test, while the same manipulation performed 30 minutes before retrieval test has no effect on fear memory.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Houssein Salah, Ronza Abdel Rassoul, Yasser Medlej, Rita Asdikian, Helene Hajjar, Sarah Dagher, Mouhamad Darwich, Christina Fakih, Makram Obeid
Summary: The study conducted contextual and auditory retention testing for two-way active avoidance in rats. The results showed that during training, avoidance gradually replaced escape or freezing behaviors.
FRONTIERS IN BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Kylie A. Huckleberry, Roberto Calitri, Anna J. Li, Mackenna Mejdell, Ashna Singh, Vasvi Bhutani, Mikaela A. Laine, Andrei S. Nastase, Maria Morena, Matthew N. Hill, Rebecca M. Shansky
Summary: Increasing evidence suggests that there may be differences in the neurobiological processes underlying learning and memory in males and females, but the specific mechanisms are not fully understood. This study explored the potential sex differences in the modulation of fear conditioning and extinction by endocannabinoids (eCBs). The results showed that females classified as "Darters" responded differently to the administration of eCB receptor drugs compared to those classified as "Non-darters". These findings suggest that there may be a sex-specific dependence on CB1Rs for context processing in females that is sensitive to disruption by TRPV1.
NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2023)
Review
Neurosciences
Konstanze Simbriger, Ines S. Amorim, Gilliard Lach, Kleanthi Chalkiadaki, Stella Kouloulia, Seyed Mehdi Jafarnejad, Arkady Khoutorsky, Christos G. Gkogkas
Summary: Contextual fear conditioning is a common behavioral paradigm used in neuroscience research to study the mechanisms of learning and memory. Using ribosome profiling, a study demonstrated that an immediate shock in male mice leads to translational and transcriptional changes in Immediate Early Genes in the dorsal hippocampus, an effect often overlooked in research.
PROGRESS IN NEUROBIOLOGY
(2021)
