Neurons Specifically Activated by Fear Learning in Lateral Amygdala Display Increased Synaptic Strength

ENeuro
Christopher W ButlerC A Reid

Abstract

The lateral amygdala (LA) plays a critical role in the formation of fear-conditioned associative memories. Previous studies have used c-fos regulated expression to identify a spatially restricted population of neurons within the LA that is specifically activated by fear learning. These neurons are likely to be a part of a memory engram, but, to date, functional evidence for this has been lacking. We show that neurons within a spatially restricted region of the LA had an increase in both the frequency and amplitude of spontaneous postsynaptic currents (sPSC) when compared to neurons recorded from home cage control mice. We then more specifically addressed if this increased synaptic activity was limited to learning-activated neurons. Using a fos-tau-LacZ (FTL) transgenic mouse line, we developed a fluorescence-based method of identifying and recording from neurons activated by fear learning (FTL+ ) in acute brain slices. An increase in frequency and amplitude of sPSCs was observed in FTL+ neurons when compared to nonactivated FTL- neurons in fear-conditioned mice. No learning-induced changes were observed in the action potential (AP) input-output relationships. These findings support the idea that a discrete LA neuron population ...Continue Reading

Citations

Apr 26, 2020·Alzheimer's & Dementia : the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association·Mehmet Bostancıklıoğlu
Nov 13, 2018·Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience·Jesse J Langille, Richard E Brown
Aug 24, 2019·Neurobiology of Learning and Memory·Amy R Dunn, Catherine C Kaczorowski
Jun 11, 2021·FEBS Open Bio·Amal BajafferTakashi Gojobori

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
transgenic
flow cytometry

Software Mentioned

Axograph
Axograph X
Prism
GraphPad
pClamp
MATLAB
ImageJ

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