title: Context processing in aging: older mice are impaired in renewal of extinguished fear.
abstract: Fear conditioning, extinction, and renewal were evaluated in adult (6-month-old) and aging (17-month-old) male C57Bl/6 mice. Mice were subjected to five tone-shock trials and later exposed to 150 tone-alone trials. Thereafter, all mice showed little fear in the extinction context. Adult mice demonstrated return of fear in a distinct context (renewal) but aging mice did not. Aging mice showed normal shock sensitivity, tone fear learning, and extinction. Aging mice thus exhibited a very selective deficit in the contextual gating of extinguished fear. This contextual gating deficit may reflect age-related pathology in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-1881, USA. matthew.sanders@marquette.edu
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Sanders
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D005108:Extinction, Psychological; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D010465:Perception; D011597:Psychomotor Performance