Acquisition of fear conditioning in rats requires the synthesis of mRNA in the amygdala. Behav Neurosci 1999 Apr;113(2):276-82
Date
06/05/1999Pubmed ID
10357452DOI
10.1037//0735-7044.113.2.276Scopus ID
2-s2.0-0032921393 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 142 CitationsAbstract
In this study, the role of mRNA synthesis in the amygdala was studied during the acquisition of conditional fear. Rats with cannulas placed in the basolateral region of the amygdala were trained with a series of noise-shock pairings in a distinctive observation chamber. One half of the rats were pretreated with the mRNA synthesis inhibitor actinomycin-D (act-D). Responding to the training context and the auditory stimulus in a novel context measured by defensive freezing was assessed. Pretreatment with act-D significantly attenuated fear responses to both stimuli. Animals receiving act-D injections exhibited normal reactions to the conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus pairings in the initial training session and displayed normal learning when retrained 7 days after injections. These results indicate that the transcription of new mRNA and subsequent protein synthesis in the amygdala may be essential for neural plasticity during this form of associative learning.
Author List
Bailey DJ, Kim JJ, Sun W, Thompson RF, Helmstetter FJAuthor
Fred Helmstetter PhD Professor in the Psychology / Neuroscience department at University of Wisconsin - MilwaukeeMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AmygdalaAnimals
Association Learning
Conditioning, Classical
Dactinomycin
Fear
Male
Memory, Short-Term
Neuronal Plasticity
Nucleic Acid Synthesis Inhibitors
RNA, Messenger
Rats
Rats, Long-Evans
