Forming competing fear learning and extinction memories in adolescence makes fear difficult to inhibit.

ABSTRACT: Fear inhibition is markedly impaired in adolescent rodents and humans. The present experiments investigated whether this impairment is critically determined by the animal's age at the time of fear learning or their age at fear extinction. Male rats (n = 170) were tested for extinction retention after conditioning and extinction at different ages. We examined neural correlates of impaired extinction retention by detection of phosphorylated mitogen-activated protein kinase immunoreactivity (pMAPK-IR) in several brain regions. Unexpectedly, adolescent rats exhibited good extinction retention if fear was acquired before adolescence. Further, fear acquired in adolescence could be successfully extinguished in adulthood but not within adolescence. Adolescent rats did not show extinction-induced i

SUBMITTER: Baker KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4749725 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature