Impaired Fear Extinction Recall in Serotonin Transporter Knockout Rats Is Transiently Alleviated during Adolescence.

ABSTRACT: Adolescence is a developmental phase characterized by emotional turmoil and coincides with the emergence of affective disorders. Inherited serotonin transporter (5-HTT) downregulation in humans increases sensitivity to these disorders. To reveal whether and how 5-HTT gene variance affects fear-driven behavior in adolescence, we tested wildtype and serotonin transporter knockout (5-HTT-/-) rats of preadolescent, adolescent, and adult age for cued fear extinction and extinction recall. To analyze neural circuit function, we quantified inhibitory synaptic contacts and, through RT-PCR, the expression of c-Fos, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and NDMA receptor subunits, in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and amygdala. Remarkably, the impaired recall of conditioned fear that charac

SUBMITTER: Schipper P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6562656 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature