Basolateral amygdala activity during the retrieval of associative learning under anesthesia

Fenton, Georgina E.; Spicer, Clare H.; Halliday, David M.; Mason, Rob; Stevenson, Carl W.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2012.12.039

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Sex differences in basal theta (4-12 Hz) and gamma (30-45 Hz) power in PL and IL were first determined. Frequency analysis with multi-taper spectral estimates 54 was conducted as previously described using custom Matlab scripts 55 . Multi-taper spectral estimates were constructed by splitting the 2 min basal period into 144 segments and averaging over K multi-taper windows, where K was used to tune the spectral bandwidth to theta (K = 5) or low gamma (K = 11) frequencies.…”

Section: Electrophysiological Data Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in auditory fear discrimination are associated with altered medial prefrontal cortex function

Day

Suwansawang

Halliday

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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The increased prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that is observed in women may involve sex differences in learned fear inhibition and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) function. PTSD is characterized by fear overgeneralization involving impaired fear regulation by safety signals. We recently found that males show fear discrimination and females show fear generalization involving reduced safety signalling after extended fear discrimination training. Here we determined if these sex differences involve altered mPFC function. Male and female rats underwent three days of auditory fear discrimination training, where one tone (CS+) was paired with footshock and another tone (CS−) was presented alone. Local field potentials were recorded from prelimbic (PL) and infralimbic (IL) mPFC during retrieval. We found that males discriminated and females generalized based on cue-induced freezing at retrieval. This was accompanied by sex differences in basal theta and gamma oscillations in PL and IL. Importantly, males also showed PL/IL theta activation during safety signalling by the CS− and IL gamma activation in response to the threat-related CS+, both of which were absent in females. These results add to growing evidence indicating that sex differences in learned fear inhibition are associated with altered mPFC function.

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Section: Electrophysiological Data Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in auditory fear discrimination are associated with altered medial prefrontal cortex function

Day

Suwansawang

Halliday

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…LFP signals (Fig. 2B) were analyzed using multitaper spectral analysis, as previously described (Fenton et al 2013). Spectral estimates of LFP activity during early and late extinction and extinction recall were generated by taking the average of the first two and last two tones during both sessions and then averaging across males or females.…”

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confidence: 99%

Persistent prelimbic cortex activity contributes to enhanced learned fear expression in females

et al. 2014

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Anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress, are more prevalent in women and are characterized by impaired inhibition of learned fear and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) dysfunction. Here we examined sex differences in fear extinction and mPFC activity in rats. Females showed more learned fear expression during extinction and its recall, but not fear conditioning. They also showed more spontaneous fear recovery and more contextual fear before extinction and its recall. Moreover, enhanced learned fear expression in females was associated with sustained prelimbic (PL) cortex activity. These results suggest that sex differences in learned fear expression may involve persistent PL activation.Women are at increased risk of developing fear-related anxiety disorders compared to men. For example, the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is twice as high in women as in men (Lebron-Milad and Milad 2012). These disorders are characterized by impaired inhibition of learned fear (Milad et al. 2009a;Jovanovic et al. 2010) and a growing number of studies in humans and animals have shown sex differences in fear extinction (Milad et al. 2006;Baran et al. 2009Baran et al. , 2010Glover et al. 2012;ter Horst et al. 2012;Baker-Andresen et al. 2013), the reduction in learned fear that occurs with repeated nonreinforced presentations of the conditioned stimulus (CS).The neural circuitry mediating fear extinction is dysfunctional in PTSD. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is a heterogeneous area that plays a crucial role in this circuit through its involvement in learned fear and extinction processing. The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in humans and its rodent homolog, the prelimbic cortex (PL), are important for conditioned fear expression. In contrast, the human ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the homologous infralimbic cortex (IL) in rodents are involved in fear suppression and extinction (Vidal-Gonzalez et al. 2006;Sierra-Mercado et al. 2011;Linnman et al. 2012). Importantly, PTSD is associated with dACC and vmPFC dysfunction (Milad et al. 2009a;Shin et al. 2009). Although a role for mPFC in mediating sex differences in fear extinction is emerging (Baran et al. 2010;Zeidan et al. 2011;Merz et al. 2012), the potential contribution of individual mPFC subregions remains unknown.We examined sex differences in local field potential (LFP) activity in PL and IL during fear extinction in male and naturally cycling female Lister hooded rats (Harlan, UK). All experimental procedures were conducted with internal ethical approval and in accordance with the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, UK. Electrodes (Teflon-coated stainless-steel wires, 50 mm diameter) were implanted into PL and IL (2.7 mm anterior and 0.5 mm lateral to bregma, 3.3 mm (PL) and 4.3 mm (IL) ventral to the brain surface) under isoflurane anesthesia. Rats received peri-and post-operative analgesia (buprenorphine and meloxicam) and were singly housed during recovery and behavioral testing, which started 10 -14 d after surgery. ...

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“…Generally, the BLA receives sensory inputs from the thalamus, hippocampus, and cortex (Davis & Whalen, 2001) and is involved in associative learning of emotional behavior (Sah et al, 2003), such as contextual fear conditioning (Fenton, Spicer, Halliday, Mason, & Stevenson, 2013; Herry et al, 2008; Maren, Poremba, & Gabriel, 1991) and social defeat conditioning (Morrison & Cooper, 2012). 5-HT1BR in the BLA is specifically associated with impulsive/aggressive trends, as evident by a higher amount of binding of 5-HT1BR in pathologically aggressive animals than normally behaving animals (Jacobs et al, 2007).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurochemical correlates of accumbal dopamine D2 and amygdaloid 5-HT1B receptor densities on observational learning of aggression

Suzuki

Lucas

2015

Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci

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Social learning theory postulates that individuals learn to engage in aggressive behavior through observing an aggressive social model. Prior studies have shown that repeatedly observing aggression, also called “chronic passive exposure to aggression,” changes accumbal dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) and amygdaloid 5-HT1B receptor (5-HT1BR) densities in observers. But, the association between these outcomes remains unknown. Thus, our study used a rat paradigm to comprehensively examine the linkage between aggression, D2R density in the nucleus accumbens core (AcbC) and shell (AcbSh), and 5-HT1BR density in the medial (MeA), basomedial (BMA), and basolateral (BLA) amygdala following chronic passive exposure to aggression. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (N = 72) were passively exposed to either aggression or non-aggression acutely (1 day) or chronically (23 days). When observer rats were exposed to aggression chronically, they showed increased aggressive behavior and reduced D2R density in the bilateral AcbSh. On the other hand, exposure to aggression, regardless of exposure length, increased 5-HT1BR density in the bilateral BLA. Finally, low D2R in the AcbSh significantly interacted with high 5-HT1BR density in the BLA in predicting high levels of aggression in observer rats. Our results advance our understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms for observational learning of aggression, highlighting that dopamine-serotonin interaction, or AcbSh-BLA interaction, may contribute to a risk factor for aggression in observers who chronically witness aggressive interactions.

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Basolateral amygdala activity during the retrieval of associative learning under anesthesia

Cited by 20 publications

References 53 publications

Sex differences in auditory fear discrimination are associated with altered medial prefrontal cortex function

Sex differences in auditory fear discrimination are associated with altered medial prefrontal cortex function

Persistent prelimbic cortex activity contributes to enhanced learned fear expression in females

Neurochemical correlates of accumbal dopamine D2 and amygdaloid 5-HT1B receptor densities on observational learning of aggression

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