Huff Nicole C, Frank Matthew, Wright-Hardesty Karli, Sprunger David, Matus-Amat Patricia, Higgins Emily, Rudy Jerry W
Department of Psychology, Center for Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA.
J Neurosci. 2006 Feb 1;26(5):1616-23. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4964-05.2006.
The basolateral nuclei of the amygdala (BLA) are thought to modulate memory storage in other brain regions (McGaugh, 2004). We reported that BLA modulates the memory for both an explored context and for contextual fear conditioning. Both of these memories depend on the hippocampus. Here, we examined the hypothesis that the BLA exerts its modulatory effect by regulating the expression of immediate-early genes (IEGs) in the hippocampus. The main findings of these experiments were: (1) Arc activity-regulated cytoskeletal protein (Arc), an immediate-early gene (also termed Arg 3.1) and c-fos mRNA are induced in the hippocampus after a context exposure, or context plus shock experience, but not after an immediate shock; and (2) BLA inactivation with muscimol attenuated the increase in Arc and c-fos mRNA in the hippocampus associated with contextual fear conditioning but did not influence Arc mRNA associated with context exploration. These results support the hypothesis that the amygdala modulates contextual fear memory by regulating expression of IEGs in the hippocampus.
杏仁核基底外侧核（BLA）被认为可调节其他脑区的记忆存储（麦高，2004年）。我们报道，BLA可调节对探索过的环境以及情境恐惧条件反射的记忆。这两种记忆均依赖于海马体。在此，我们检验了如下假说：BLA通过调节海马体中即早基因（IEGs）的表达发挥其调节作用。这些实验的主要发现为：（1）活动调节细胞骨架相关蛋白（Arc），一种即早基因（也称为Arg 3.1）和c-fos mRNA，在暴露于环境或环境加电击经历后于海马体中被诱导表达，但在即刻电击后则不会；以及（2）用蝇蕈醇使BLA失活可减弱与情境恐惧条件反射相关的海马体中Arc和c-fos mRNA的增加，但不影响与环境探索相关的Arc mRNA。这些结果支持了如下假说：杏仁核通过调节海马体中即早基因的表达来调节情境恐惧记忆。
