Gogolla Nadine, Caroni Pico, Lüthi Andreas, Herry Cyril
Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Maulbeerstrasse 66, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Science. 2009 Sep 4;325(5945):1258-61. doi: 10.1126/science.1174146.
In adult animals, fear conditioning induces a permanent memory that is resilient to erasure by extinction. In contrast, during early postnatal development, extinction of conditioned fear leads to memory erasure, suggesting that fear memories are actively protected in adults. We show here that this protection is conferred by extracellular matrix chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPGs) in the amygdala. The organization of CSPGs into perineuronal nets (PNNs) coincided with the developmental switch in fear memory resilience. In adults, degradation of PNNs by chondroitinase ABC specifically rendered subsequently acquired fear memories susceptible to erasure. This result indicates that intact PNNs mediate the formation of erasure-resistant fear memories and identifies a molecular mechanism closing a postnatal critical period during which traumatic memories can be erased by extinction.
在成年动物中，恐惧条件反射会诱导产生一种永久性记忆，这种记忆对消退性遗忘具有抗性。相比之下，在出生后早期发育阶段，条件性恐惧的消退会导致记忆消除，这表明成年期的恐惧记忆受到了积极的保护。我们在此表明，这种保护是由杏仁核中的细胞外基质硫酸软骨素蛋白聚糖（CSPG）赋予的。CSPG组织形成神经元周围网络（PNN）与恐惧记忆恢复力的发育转变相吻合。在成年动物中，用软骨素酶ABC降解PNN会使随后获得的恐惧记忆特别容易被消除。这一结果表明，完整的PNN介导了抗消退性恐惧记忆的形成，并确定了一种分子机制，该机制关闭了一个产后关键期，在此期间创伤性记忆可以通过消退而被消除。
