title: Novelty during a late postacquisition time window attenuates the persistence of fear memory.
abstract: Learning to avoid threats in the environment is highly adaptive. However, sometimes a dysregulation of fear memories processing may underlie fear-related disorders. Despite recent advances, a major question of how to effectively attenuate persistent fear memories in a safe manner remains unresolved. Here we show experiments employing a behavioural tool to target a specific time window after training to limit the persistence of a fear memory in rats. We observed that exposure to a novel environment 11 h after an inhibitory avoidance (IA) training that induces a long-lasting memory, attenuates the durability of IA memory but not its formation. This effect is time-restricted and not seen when the environment is familiar. In addition, novelty-induced attenuation of IA memory durability is prevented by the intrahippocampal infusion of the CaMKs inhibitor KN-93. This new behavioural approach which targets a specific time window during late memory consolidation, might represent a new tool for reducing the durability of persistent fear memories.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencias, Facultad de Medicina "Dr Eduardo De Robertis" (UBA-CONICET), UBA, Paraguay 2155, 3 piso, Buenos Aires (C1121ABG), Argentina.
authors.forename: Cynthia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Katche
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencias, Facultad de Medicina "Dr Eduardo De Robertis" (UBA-CONICET), UBA, Paraguay 2155, 3 piso, Buenos Aires (C1121ABG), Argentina.
authors.forename: Micol
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tomaiuolo
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencias, Facultad de Medicina "Dr Eduardo De Robertis" (UBA-CONICET), UBA, Paraguay 2155, 3 piso, Buenos Aires (C1121ABG), Argentina.
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dorman
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencias, Facultad de Medicina "Dr Eduardo De Robertis" (UBA-CONICET), UBA, Paraguay 2155, 3 piso, Buenos Aires (C1121ABG), Argentina.|Departamento de Fisiología, Facultad de Medicina, UBA, Paraguay 2155, 7 piso, Buenos Aires (C1121ABG), Argentina.
authors.forename: Jorge H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Medina
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencias, Facultad de Medicina "Dr Eduardo De Robertis" (UBA-CONICET), UBA, Paraguay 2155, 3 piso, Buenos Aires (C1121ABG), Argentina.|Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular Dr Hector Maldonado, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires (C1428EGA), Argentina.
authors.forename: Haydee
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Viola
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D005239:Fear; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar