Journal
ENEURO
Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages -Publisher
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0163-20.2020
Keywords
contextual fear; fear memory; basal amygdala; bed nucleus of the stria terminalis; neural circuits; encoding; fear engram
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [R01 MH104589, DP2 OD006446, P30 NS047243]
- NIH [T32 NS061764]
- Dean's Graduate Fellowship
- Fyssen Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Bettencourt Schueller Foundation Award
- Philippe Foundation Award
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Both the basal amygdala (BA) and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) can participate in contextual fear, but it is unclear whether contextual fear engrams involve a direct interaction between these two brain regions. To determine whether dorsal BNST (dBNST)-projecting neurons in the BA participate in contextual fear engrams, we combined the TetTag mouse with a retrograde tracer to label dBNST-projecting cells in the BA. We identified a population of neurons located in the anterior subdivision of the BA (aBA) that was activated during fear conditioning and reactivated during retrieval but that did not project to the dBNST. In contrast, dBNST-projecting neurons located in the posterior BA (pBA) were activated during contextual fear conditioning but were not reactivated during retrieval. Similarly, we found neurons in the oval BNST subdivision (ovBNST) that were activated during contextual fear conditioning without being reactivated during retrieval. However, the anterodorsal BNST (adBNST) subdivision was not activated during either contextual fear conditioning or retrieval, underscoring the divergent functionality of these two dBNST subdivisions. Finally, we found that the ovBNST receives a monosynaptic projection from neurons located in the BA. Our results indicate that aBA neurons that do not project to the dBNST participate in contextual fear engrams. In contrast, dBNST-projecting neurons in the BA do not appear to participate in contextual fear engrams, but might instead contain a BA -> ovBNST pathway that is active during the initial encoding of contextual fear memories.
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