Published in Behavioural brain research
Adversities during juvenility increase the risk for stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder. However, stress can also induce coping mechanisms beneficial for later stressful experiences. We reported previously that mice selectively bred for high alcohol preference (HAP) exposed to stress duri...
Published in Scientific Reports
Early adolescent adversity increases adult risk for anxiety disorders. The ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG) and neighboring dorsal raphe (DR) are integral to threat prediction, and are responsive to acute stressors. Here, we tested the hypothesis that early adolescent adversity reshapes vlPAG/DR threat-related cue activity and threat proba...
Published in Scientific Reports
In fear conditioning, where a conditioned stimulus predicts the arrival of an aversive stimulus, the animal encodes the time interval between the two stimuli. Here we monitored respiration to visualize anticipatory behavioral responses in an odor fear conditioning in rats, while recording theta (5–15 Hz) and gamma (40–80 Hz) brain oscillatory activ...
Published in International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology
Individual differences in fear learning are a crucial prerequisite for the translational value of the fear-conditioning model. In a representative sample (N = 936), we used latent class growth models to detect individual differences in associative fear learning. For a series of subsequent test phases varying in ambiguity (i.e., acquisition, extinct...
Published in Scientific Reports
The biological mechanisms involved in fear transmission within families have been scarcely investigated in humans. Here we studied (1) how children acquired conditioned fear from observing their parent, or a stranger, being exposed to a fear conditioning paradigm, and (2) the subsequent fear extinction process in these children. Eighty-three child-...
Published in Molecular Brain
Most individuals undergo traumatic stresses at some points in their life, but only a small proportion develop stress-related disorders such as anxiety diseases and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although stress susceptibility is one determinant of mental disorders, the underlying mechanisms and functional implication remain unclear yet. We f...
Published in Scientific Reports
Lesioning or inactivating the infralimbic (IL) subregion of the medial prefrontal cortex before acquisition produces more generalized and extinction-resistant fear memories. However, whether and how it modulates memory specificity and extinction susceptibility while consolidation takes place is still unknown. The present study aims to investigate t...
Published in Behavioural brain research
Establishing a contextual representation of an environment places specific spatial-temporal processing demands on the mammalian hippocampus, a region showing sex-differences in processing capabilities. However, evidence for sex differences in these processing demands during contextual fear learning remains limited. Here, we examined the relationshi...
Published in Behavioural brain research
Emerging evidence indicates that the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is not confined to neuronal disruptions but robustly communicates with the brain's immune system. Genome-wide analysis suggests that several genes, which increase the risk for AD, encode for factors that regulate the glial clearance of misfolded proteins and the inflammat...
Published in Brain, behavior, and immunity
Impaired extinction of pain-related fear memories can lead to persistent or resurging fear of pain, contributing to the development and maintenance of chronic pain conditions. The mechanisms underlying maladaptive pain-related learning and memory processes remain incompletely understood, particularly in the context of interoceptive, visceral pain. ...
