Pavlovian fear conditioning activates a common pattern of neurons in the lateral amygdala of individual brains.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the physical encoding of a memory (the engram) is a fundamental question in neuroscience. Although it has been established that the lateral amygdala is a key site for encoding associative fear memory, it is currently unclear whether the spatial distribution of neurons encoding a given memory is random or stable. Here we used spatial principal components analysis to quantify the topography of activated neurons, in a select region of the lateral amygdala, from rat brains encoding a Pavlovian conditioned fear memory. Our results demonstrate a stable, spatially patterned organization of amygdala neurons are activated during the formation of a Pavlovian conditioned fear memory. We suggest that this stable neuronal assembly constitutes a spatial dimension of the engram.

SUBMITTER: Bergstrom HC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3020219 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature