Interoceptive Insular Cortex Mediates Both Innate Fear and Contextual Threat Conditioning to Predator Odor.

ABSTRACT: The insular cortex (IC), among other brain regions, becomes active when humans experience fear or anxiety. However, few experimental studies in rats have implicated the IC in threat responses. We have recently reported that inactivation of the primary interoceptive cortex (pIC) during pre-training, or the intra-pIC blockade of protein synthesis immediately after training, impaired the consolidation of auditory fear conditioning. The present study was designed to investigate the role of the pIC in innate and learned defensive responses to predator odor. Freezing behavior was elicited by single or repetitive exposures to a collar that had been worn by a domestic cat. Sessions were video-recorded and later scored by video observation. We found that muscimol inactivation of the pIC reduced the

SUBMITTER: Rodriguez M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6962178 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature