Pre- and postsynaptic N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors are required for sequential printing of fear memory engrams.

ABSTRACT: The organization of fear memory involves the participation of multiple brain regions. However, it is largely unknown how fear memory is formed, which circuit pathways are used for "printing" memory engrams across brain regions, and the role of identified brain circuits in memory retrieval. With advanced genetic methods, we combinatorially blocked presynaptic output and manipulated N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) before and after cued fear conditioning. Further, we tagged fear-activated neurons during associative learning for optogenetic memory recall. We found that presynaptic mPFC and postsynaptic BLA NMDARs are required for fear memory formation, but not expression. Our results provide strong evidence that NMDAR-

SUBMITTER: Bertocchi I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10590821 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature