Pavlovian fear conditioning activates a common pattern of neurons in the lateral amygdala of individual brains.
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.
Psychiatry and Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
Hadley C
HC
Bergstrom
Craig G
CG
McDonald
Luke R
LR
Johnson
D000679:Amygdala / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D051381:Rats; D009435:Synaptic Transmission
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