| First Author | Jo YS | Year | 2020 |
| Journal | Nat Commun | Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | 422 |
| PubMed ID | 31969571 | Mgi Jnum | J:286098 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6387434 | Doi | 10.1038/s41467-020-14393-y |
| Citation | Jo YS, et al. (2020) Persistent activation of central amygdala CRF neurons helps drive the immediate fear extinction deficit. Nat Commun 11(1):422 |
| abstractText | Fear extinction is an active learning process whereby previously established conditioned responses to a conditioned stimulus are suppressed. Paradoxically, when extinction training is performed immediately following fear acquisition, the extinction memory is weakened. Here, we demonstrate that corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF)-expressing neurons in the central amygdala (CeA) antagonize the extinction memory following immediate extinction training. CeA-CRF neurons transition from responding to the unconditioned stimulus to the conditioned stimulus during the acquisition of a fear memory that persists during immediate extinction training, but diminishes during delayed extinction training. Inhibition of CeA-CRF neurons during immediate extinction training is sufficient to promote enhanced extinction memories, and activation of these neurons following delay extinction training is sufficient to reinstate a previously extinguished fear memory. These results demonstrate CeA-CRF neurons are an important substrate for the persistence of fear and have broad implications for the neural basis of persistent negative affective behavioral states. |
