Novelty and fear conditioning induced gene expression in high and low states of anxiety
Open Access
- 16 August 2017
- journal article
- Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Learning & Memory
- Vol. 24 (9), 449-461
- https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.044289.116
Abstract
Emotional states influence how stimuli are interpreted. High anxiety states in humans lead to more negative, threatening interpretations of novel information, typically accompanied by activation of the amygdala. We developed a handling protocol that induces long-lasting high and low anxiety-like states in rats to explore the role of state anxiety on brain activation during exposure to a novel environment and fear conditioning. In situ hybridization of the inducible transcription factor Egr-1 found increased gene expression in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala (LA) following exposure to a novel environment and contextual fear conditioning in high anxiety-like rats. In contrast, low state anxiety-like rats did not generate Egr-1 increases in LA when placed in a novel chamber. Egr-1 expression was also examined in the dorsal hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. In CA1 of the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), Egr-1 expression increased in response to novel context exposure and fear conditioning, independent of state anxiety level. Furthermore, in mPFC, Egr-1 in low anxiety-like rats was increased more with fear conditioning than novel exposure. The current series of experiments show that brain areas involved in fear and anxiety-like states do not respond uniformly to novelty during high and low states of anxiety.Keywords
Funding Information
- National Science Foundation (IBN-0129809)
This publication has 121 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Effect of Threat on Novelty Evoked Amygdala ResponsesPLOS ONE, 2013
- The structural and functional connectivity of the amygdala: From normal emotion to pathological anxietyBehavioural Brain Research, 2011
- The human amygdala plays a stimulus specific role in the detection of noveltyNeuroImage, 2011
- Sustained amygdala response to both novel and newly familiar faces characterizes inhibited temperamentSocial Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2010
- Fear and safety learning differentially affect synapse size and dendritic translation in the lateral amygdalaProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010
- A unique role for the human amygdala in novelty detectionNeuroImage, 2010
- Are the Dorsal and Ventral Hippocampus Functionally Distinct Structures?Neuron, 2010
- Medial temporal lobe activity can distinguish between old and new stimuli independently of overt behavioral choiceProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009
- Environmental novelty elicits a later theta phase of firing in CA1 but not subiculumHippocampus, 2009
- Neural correlates of novelty and face–age effects in young and elderly adultsNeuroImage, 2008