Network control of fear and goal-directed behavior

Recent methodological advances have enabled the control and visualization of large populations of neurons across multiple brain structures, allowing researchers to investigate learning and memory not merely as functions of isolated brain areas, but as a result of dynamic and interconnected networks. This network-based perspective is crucial, given that brain areas rarely act in isolation: their contribution to behavior depends on distributed interactions across the brain.

It is still unclear how the coordinated activity between brain regions evolves as memories are initially formed and later changed (e.g., via extinction learning or reconsolidation), and to what extent appetitive and aversive memories recruit common versus specialized circuits. In this Research Topic, we aim to address this gap by welcoming system neuroscience studies scrutinizing both aversive and appetitive memory. Addressing these questions holds both scientific and clinical relevance. Understanding the network-level mechanisms of memory can inform interventions to weaken maladaptive memories, as in PTSD, or to preserve goal-directed memories in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

This Research Topic investigates the network-level neural mechanisms underlying the dynamic formation and transformation of both fear and appetitive memories, emphasizing how inter-regional dynamics control learned associations of different valences.

To this aim, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to:

• Interregional coordinated activity in associative learning

• Dynamic reorganization of network hubs during memory encoding, extinction, and reconsolidation

• Neuromodulation (e.g., noradrenergic, dopaminergic, cannabinoid) of brain circuits supporting memory encoding, extinction, and updating

• Memory strength and valence in distributed networks: from local plasticity to global reconfiguration

• Neuronal gating of competing valence circuits: aversive vs. appetitive arbitration

• Activity-tagged ensembles and immediate early gene signaling across memory phases

• Oscillatory dynamics and inhibitory circuit mechanisms underlying memory extinction and updating

• Neuronal regulation of prefrontal arbitration between competing memory traces during behavioral conflict

• Impact of affective states on circuit arbitration.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: fear, goal-directed behavior, neuronal populations, learning, memory, network, extinction learning, reconsolidation, aversive memories, appetitive memory

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.