Pathway specific activation of ventral hippocampal cells projecting to the prelimbic cortex diminishes fear renewal

J.H. Vasquez; K.C. Leong; C.M. Gagliardi; B. Harland; A.j. Apicella; I.A. Muzzio

doi:10.1016/j.nlm.2019.03.003

Back

Pathway specific activation of ventral hippocampal cells projecting to the prelimbic cortex diminishes fear renewal

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Pathway specific activation of ventral hippocampal cells projecting to the prelimbic cortex diminishes fear renewal

J.H. Vasquez, K.C. Leong, C.M. Gagliardi, B. Harland, A.j. Apicella and I.A. Muzzio

Neurobiology of learning and memory, Vol.161, pp.63-71

05/2019

DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2019.03.003

PMCID: PMC6736601

PMID: 30898692

Files and links (1)

url

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/6736601View

Open Access

Abstract

•Context-dependent fear renewal is modulated by selective hippocampal outputs.•Activation of ventral hippocampus-prelimbic projections decreases fear renewal.•Ventral hippocampus-prelimbic pathway activation does not affect fear retrieval. The ability to learn that a stimulus no longer signals danger is known as extinction. A major characteristic of extinction is that it is context-dependent, which means that fear reduction only occurs in the same context as extinction training. In other contexts, there is re-emergence of fear, known as contextual renewal. The ability to properly extinguish fear memories and generalize safety associations to multiple contexts provides therapeutic potential, but little is known about the specific neural pathways that mediate fear renewal and extinction generalization. The ventral hippocampus (VH) is thought to provide a contextual gating mechanism that determines whether fear or safety is expressed in particular contexts through its projections to areas of the fear circuit, including the infralimbic (IL) and prelimbic (PL) cortices. Moreover, VH principal cells fire in large, overlapping regions of the environment, a characteristic that is ideal to support generalization; yet it is unclear how different projection cells mediate this process. Using a pathway-specific (intersectional) chemogenetic approach, we demonstrate that selective activation of VH cells projecting to PL attenuates fear renewal without affecting fear expression. These results have implications for anxiety disorders since they uncover a neural pathway associated with extinction generalization.

Chemogenetics

DREADDs

Fear conditioning

Prelimbic cortex

Renewal

Ventral hippocampus

Details

Title: Subtitle: Pathway specific activation of ventral hippocampal cells projecting to the prelimbic cortex diminishes fear renewal
Creators: J.H. Vasquez - The University of Texas at San Antonio
K.C. Leong - Trinity University
C.M. Gagliardi - The University of Texas at San Antonio
B. Harland - The University of Texas at San Antonio
A.j. Apicella - The University of Texas at San Antonio
I.A. Muzzio - The University of Texas at San Antonio
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Neurobiology of learning and memory, Vol.161, pp.63-71
DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2019.03.003
PMID: 30898692
PMCID: PMC6736601
NLM abbreviation: Neurobiol Learn Mem
ISSN: 1074-7427
eISSN: 1095-9564
Publisher: Elsevier Inc
Grant note: DOI: 10.13039/100000001, name: NSF; DOI: 10.13039/100000002, name: National Institutes of Health; DOI: 10.13039/100000057, name: NIGMS, award: GM122645; DOI: 10.13039/100008634, name: UTSA, award: 1565410, GM007717
Language: English
Date published: 05/2019
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984294923202771

Metrics

7 Record Views

23 Times Cited - Web of Science