Specific behaviors during auditory fear conditioning and postsynaptic expression of AMPA receptors in the basolateral amygdala predict interindividual differences in fear generalization in male rats
Open Access
- 14 April 2023
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Learning & Memory
- Vol. 30 (4), 74-84
- https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.053612.122
Abstract
Auditory fear conditioning in rats is a widely used method to study learning, memory, and emotional responding. Despite procedural standardizations and optimizations, there is substantial interindividual variability in fear expression during test, notably in terms of fear expressed toward the testing context alone. To better understand which factors could explain this variation between subjects, we here explored whether behavior during training and expression of AMPA receptors (AMPARs) after long-term memory formation in the amygdala could predict freezing during test. We studied outbred male rats and found strong variation in fear generalization to a different context. Hierarchical clustering of these data identified two distinct groups of subjects that independently correlated with a specific pattern of behaviors expressed during initial training (i.e., rearing and freezing). The extent of fear generalization correlated positively with postsynaptic expression of GluA1-containing AMPA receptors in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala. Our data thus identify candidate behavioral and molecular predictors of fear generalization that may inform our understanding of some anxiety-related disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), that are characterized by overgeneralized fear.Keywords
Funding Information
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal (SFRH/BD/51284/2010)
- Graduate Program in Areas of Basic and Applied Biology
- University of Porto, Portugal
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (PJT 175204)
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2020-04795)
- Canadian Fund for Innovation (CFI-JELF 41168)
- Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain (R83731)
This publication has 68 references indexed in Scilit:
- Depletion of serotonin in the basolateral amygdala elevates glutamate receptors and facilitates fear-potentiated startleTranslational Psychiatry, 2013
- AMPA receptor exchange underlies transient memory destabilization on retrievalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013
- Heterogeneity in threat extinction learning: substantive and methodological considerations for identifying individual difference in response to stressFrontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 2013
- Amygdalar Stimulation Produces Alterations on Firing Properties of Hippocampal Place CellsJournal of Neuroscience, 2012
- P-chlorophenylalanine increases glutamate receptor 1 transcription in rat amygdalaNeuroReport, 2011
- Calcium-Permeable AMPA Receptor Dynamics Mediate Fear Memory ErasureScience, 2010
- The Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis Mediates Inter-individual Variations in Anxiety and FearJournal of Neuroscience, 2009
- Subunit Composition of Synaptic AMPA Receptors Revealed by a Single-Cell Genetic ApproachNeuron, 2009
- Low-frequency stimulation induces a pathway-specific late phase of LTP in the amygdala that is mediated by PKA and dependent on protein synthesisLearning & Memory, 2007
- Distribution of NMDA and AMPA receptor subunits at thalamo-amygdaloid dendritic spinesBrain Research, 2007