Intrinsic neuronal excitability is reversibly altered by a single experience in fear conditioning.

ABSTRACT: Learning is known to cause alterations in intrinsic cellular excitability but, to date, these changes have been seen only after multiple training trials. A powerful learning task that can be quickly acquired and extinguished with a single trial is fear conditioning. Rats were trained and extinguished on a hippocampus-dependent form of fear conditioning to determine whether learning-related changes in intrinsic excitability could be observed after a few training trials and a single extinction trial. Following fear training, hippocampal slices were made and intrinsic excitability was assayed via whole cell recordings from CA1 neurons. Alterations in intrinsic excitability, assayed by the postburst afterhyperpolarization and firing frequency accommodation, were observed after only three trial

SUBMITTER: McKay BM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2777817 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature