Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms for Trapping and Activating Emotional Memories

Rogerson, Thomas and Jayaprakash, Balaji and Cai, Denise J and Sano, Yoshitake and Lee, Yong-Seok and Zhou, Yu and Bekal, Pallavi and Deisseroth, Karl and Silva, Alcino J (2016) Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms for Trapping and Activating Emotional Memories. In: PLOS ONE, 11 (8).

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Abstract

Recent findings suggest that memory allocation to specific neurons (i.e., neuronal allocation) in the amygdala is not random, but rather the transcription factor cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB) modulates this process, perhaps by regulating the transcription of channels that control neuronal excitability. Here, optogenetic studies in the mouse lateral amygdala (LA) were used to demonstrate that CREB and neuronal excitability regulate which neurons encode an emotional memory. To test the role of CREB in memory allocation, we overexpressed CREB in the lateral amygdala to recruit the encoding of an auditory-fear conditioning (AFC) memory to a subset of neurons. Then, post-training activation of these neurons with Channelrhodopsin-2 was sufficient to trigger recall of the memory for AFC, suggesting that CREB regulates memory allocation. To test the role of neuronal excitability in memory allocation, we used a step function opsin (SFO) to transiently increase neuronal excitability in a subset of LA neurons during AFC. Post-training activation of these neurons with Volvox Channelrhodopsin-1 was able to trigger recall of that memory. Importantly, our studies show that activation of the SFO did not affect AFC by either increasing anxiety or by strengthening the unconditioned stimulus. Our findings strongly support the hypothesis that CREB regulates memory allocation by modulating neuronal excitability.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	PLOS ONE
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belongs to the PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 1160 BATTERY STREET, STE 100, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111 USA
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Neuroscience
Date Deposited:	22 Oct 2016 10:15
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2016 10:15
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/55093

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