Publication Date:
2009-04-04
Description:
Dysregulation of the fear system is at the core of many psychiatric disorders. Much progress has been made in uncovering the neural basis of fear learning through studies in which associative emotional memories are formed by pairing an initially neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS; e.g., a tone) to an unconditioned stimulus (US; e.g., a shock). Despite recent advances, the question of how to persistently weaken aversive CS-US associations, or dampen traumatic memories in pathological cases, remains a major dilemma. Two paradigms (blockade of reconsolidation and extinction) have been used in the laboratory to reduce acquired fear. Unfortunately, their clinical efficacy is limited: Reconsolidation blockade typically requires potentially toxic drugs, and extinction is not permanent. Here, we describe a behavioral design in which a fear memory in rats is destabilized and reinterpreted as safe by presenting an isolated retrieval trial before an extinction session. This procedure permanently attenuates the fear memory without the use of drugs.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3625935/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉 〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3625935/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Monfils, Marie-H -- Cowansage, Kiriana K -- Klann, Eric -- LeDoux, Joseph E -- F31 MH083472/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- F31 MH083472-01A1/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- F31MH083472/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- K05 MH067048/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- NS034007/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/ -- NS047384/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/ -- P50 MH058911/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R01 MH046516/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- R37 MH038774/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2009 May 15;324(5929):951-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1167975. Epub 2009 Apr 2.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA. monfils@mail.utexas.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19342552" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Amygdala/physiology
;
Animals
;
Conditioning, Classical
;
Extinction, Psychological/*physiology
;
*Fear
;
Male
;
Memory/*physiology
;
Mental Recall/*physiology
;
Phosphorylation
;
Rats
;
Receptors, AMPA/metabolism
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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