| First Author | Baek J | Year | 2019 |
| Journal | Nature | Volume | 566 |
| Issue | 7744 | Pages | 339-343 |
| PubMed ID | 30760920 | Mgi Jnum | J:274363 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6294853 | Doi | 10.1038/s41586-019-0931-y |
| Citation | Baek J, et al. (2019) Neural circuits underlying a psychotherapeutic regimen for fear disorders. Nature 566(7744):339-343 |
| abstractText | A psychotherapeutic regimen that uses alternating bilateral sensory stimulation (ABS) has been used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the neural basis that underlies the long-lasting effect of this treatment-described as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing-has not been identified. Here we describe a neuronal pathway driven by the superior colliculus (SC) that mediates persistent attenuation of fear. We successfully induced a lasting reduction in fear in mice by pairing visual ABS with conditioned stimuli during fear extinction. Among the types of visual stimulation tested, ABS provided the strongest fear-reducing effect and yielded sustained increases in the activities of the SC and mediodorsal thalamus (MD). Optogenetic manipulation revealed that the SC-MD circuit was necessary and sufficient to prevent the return of fear. ABS suppressed the activity of fear-encoding cells and stabilized inhibitory neurotransmission in the basolateral amygdala through a feedforward inhibitory circuit from the MD. Together, these results reveal the neural circuit that underlies an effective strategy for sustainably attenuating traumatic memories. |
