Selective early-acquired fear memories undergo temporary suppression during adolescence. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Highly conserved neural circuitry between rodents and humans has allowed for in-depth characterization of behavioral and molecular processes associated with emotional learning and memory. Despite increased prevalence of affective disorders in adolescent humans, few studies have characterized how associative-emotional learning changes during the transition through adolescence or identified mechanisms underlying such changes. By examining fear conditioning in mice, as they transitioned into and out of adolescence, we found that a suppression of contextual fear occurs during adolescence. Although contextual fear memories were not expressed during early adolescence, they could be retrieved and expressed as the mice transitioned out of adolescence. This temporary suppression of contextual fear was associated with blunted synaptic activity in the basal amygdala and decreased PI3K and MAPK signaling in the hippocampus. These findings reveal a unique form of brain plasticity in fear learning during early adolescence and may prove informative for understanding endogenous mechanisms to suppress unwanted fear memories.

publication date

  • January 10, 2011

Research

keywords

  • Amygdala
  • Association Learning
  • Fear
  • Hippocampus
  • Memory
  • Psychology, Adolescent
  • Signal Transduction

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC3024661

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 79551624514

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1073/pnas.1012975108

PubMed ID

  • 21220344

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 108

issue

  • 3