Defensive conditioning-related functional heterogeneity among nuclei of the rat amygdala revealed by c-Fos mapping

Differential involvement of the central amygdala in appetitive versus aversive learning

“…However, the recent work of Koo et al (2004), who used fiber-sparing neurotoxic lesions, showed that expression of conditioned fear involves mainly projections that course through the CE en route to downstream fear response structures rather than the CE itself. Furthermore, the lack of involvement of the CE in the instrumental conditioning (aversively motivated) was observed by Duncan et al (1996) and Savonenko et al (1999), who saw no c-Fos expression in the CE during the acquisition of an active avoidance response. Similarly, in the place avoidance paradigm, Frenois et al (2005) have recently shown that re-exposure of rats to a withdrawal-paired environment caused decreased c-Fos responses in the CE but increased responses in the BLA.…”

“…The amygdaloid complex consists of several cytoarchitectonically well-defined and internally distinguishable nuclei (Pitkanen et al 2000;Sah et al 2003). In concert with the anatomical data, there are also functional differences between various nuclei (Killcross et al 1997;Savonenko et al 1999) or even their subdivisions (Repa et al 2001;Radwanska et al 2002). However, precise classification of their functions in the context of behavior still remains a major goal of research.…”

The effect of age on the dynamics and the level of c-Fos activation in response to acute restraint in Lewis rats

“…The brains were deep frozen and stored at −72 • C until the day of sectioning in the cryostat (−21 • C). Forty-micrometer thick coronal sections were taken and subjected to standard c-Fos immunocytochemistry according to the procedure described in detail before [35].…”

“…Since the discovery of c-Fos as a functional marker of neuronal activation, expression of this protein has been used in many studies to identify cells and specific brain circuits that are responsive to various stimuli [23,31,35]. With this method it has been demonstrated that an increase in anxiety is associated with increased c-Fos expression in specific brain areas implicated in the regulation of emotional behavior including the amygdala, hypothalamus and hippocampus [8,9,22,29,31,35].…”

“…With this method it has been demonstrated that an increase in anxiety is associated with increased c-Fos expression in specific brain areas implicated in the regulation of emotional behavior including the amygdala, hypothalamus and hippocampus [8,9,22,29,31,35].…”