The anterior cingulate cortex and its role in controlling contextual fear memory to predatory threats

eLife

Fernando A Oliveira¹  Miguel Antonio Xavier de Lima²  Newton Sabino Canteras²  Marcus Vinicius C Baldo³ 

[1] Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory (LaNeC) - Center for Mathematics, Computing and Cognition (CMCC), Federal University of ABC, São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil;Department of Anatomy, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil;Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil;

关键词: fear memory;    cerebral cortex;    defensive behavior;    Mouse;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.67007

来源: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

【 摘 要 】

Predator exposure is a life-threatening experience and elicits learned fear responses to the context in which the predator was encountered. The anterior cingulate area (ACA) occupies a pivotal position in a cortical network responsive to predatory threats, and it exerts a critical role in processing fear memory. The experiments were made in mice and revealed that the ACA is involved in both the acquisition and expression of contextual fear to predatory threat. Overall, the ACA can provide predictive relationships between the context and the predator threat and influences fear memory acquisition through projections to the basolateral amygdala and perirhinal region and the expression of contextual fear through projections to the dorsolateral periaqueductal gray. Our results expand previous studies based on classical fear conditioning and open interesting perspectives for understanding how the ACA is involved in processing contextual fear memory to ethologic threatening conditions that entrain specific medial hypothalamic fear circuits.

【 授权许可】

CC BY