Effects of Neonatal Amygdala Lesions on Fear Learning, Conditioned Inhibition, and Extinction in Adult Macaques.
Fear conditioning studies have demonstrated the critical role played by the amygdala in emotion processing. Although all lesion studies until now investigated the effect of adult-onset damage on fear conditioning, the current study assessed fear-learning abilities, as measured by fear-potentiated st...
| Published in: | Behavioral Neuroscience Vol. 126; no. 3; pp. 392 - 404 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article |
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American Psychological Association
Jun2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=76305237&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 76305237 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 07357044 BEN jtl: Behavioral Neuroscience issn: 07357044 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2012 vid: 126 iid: 3 pid: 34 pub: American Psychological Association artinfo: ui: 76305237 10.1037/a0028241 ppf: 392 ppct: 12 formats: tig: atl: Effects of Neonatal Amygdala Lesions on Fear Learning, Conditioned Inhibition, and Extinction in Adult Macaques. aug: au: Kazama, Andy M. Heuer, Eric Davis, Michael Bachevalier, Jocelyne affil: Emory University su: Fear Emotions Physiology Amygdaloid body physiology Response inhibition Startle reaction Macaques sug: subj: Fear Emotions Physiology Amygdaloid body physiology Response inhibition Startle reaction Macaques keyword: emotion regulation post-traumatic stress disorder rhesus monkey safety-signal learning emotion regulation post-traumatic stress disorder rhesus monkey safety-signal learning ab: Fear conditioning studies have demonstrated the critical role played by the amygdala in emotion processing. Although all lesion studies until now investigated the effect of adult-onset damage on fear conditioning, the current study assessed fear-learning abilities, as measured by fear-potentiated startle, in adult monkeys that had received neonatal neurotoxic amygdala damage or sham-operations. After fear acquisition, their abilities to learn and use a safety cue to modulate their fear to the conditioned cue, and, finally, to extinguish their response to the fear conditioned cue were measured with the AX+/BX- Paradigm. Neonatal amygdala damage retarded, but did not completely abolish, the acquisition of a learned fear. After acquisition of the fear signal, four of the six animals with neonatal amygdala lesions discriminated between the fear and safety cues and were also able to use the safety signal to reduce the potentiated-startle response and to extinguish the fear response when the air-blast was absent. In conclusion, the present results support the critical contribution of the amygdala during the early phases of fear conditioning that leads to quick, robust responses to potentially threatening stimuli, a highly adaptive process across all species and likely to be present in early infancy. The neonatal amygdala lesions also indicated the presence of amygdala-independent alternate pathways that are capable to support fear learning in the absence of a functional amygdala. This parallel processing of fear responses within these alternate pathways was also sufficient to support the ability to flexibly modulate the magnitude of the fear responses. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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