Selective erasure of a fear memory
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1
University of Toronto, Department of Physiology and Institute of Medical Sciences, Canada
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2
Hospital for Sick Children, Program in Neurosciences and Mental Health, Canada
A fundamental goal of neuroscience is to understand how memories are encoded and stored in the brain. Indeed, identifying the physical basis of memory within the brain (the memory trace) has been a long-standing challenge for scientists since Karl Lashley’s “search for the engram” in the 1950’s. Memories are thought to be encoded by sparsely distributed groups of neurons. However, identifying the precise neurons supporting a given memory (the memory trace) has been a long-standing challenge. We have shown previously that lateral amygdala (LA) neurons with increased CREB are preferentially activated by fear memory expression, suggesting they are selectively recruited into the memory trace. Here we used an inducible diphtheria-toxin strategy to specifically ablate these neurons. Selectively deleting neurons overexpressing CREB (but not a similar portion of random LA neurons) after learning blocked expression of that fear memory. The resulting memory loss was robust and persistent, suggesting that the memory was permanently erased. These results establish a causal link between a specific neuronal subpopulation and memory expression, thereby identifying critical neurons within the memory trace.
Conference:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Symposia lectures
Citation:
Josselyn
SA
(2009). Selective erasure of a fear memory.
Conference Abstract:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.031
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Received:
04 Jun 2009;
Published Online:
04 Jun 2009.
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Correspondence:
Sheena A Josselyn, University of Toronto, Department of Physiology and Institute of Medical Sciences, Toronto, Canada, sheena.josselyn@sickkids.ca