Electrophysiological signatures of fear conditioning in the dorsal striatum

• Grant number: 13/13665-0
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): December 01, 2013
• Effective date (End): March 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal researcher: Marcelo Bussotti Reyes
• Grantee: Eliezyer Fermino de Oliveira
• Home Institution: Centro de Matemática, Computação e Cognição (CMCC). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/12904-4 - Lateral entorhinal cortex role in modulation of hippocampus LFP to bind discontiguous events, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

The memory - the process of acquisition, retention and recall of information - is a universal characteristic with high adaptive value present in vertebrates and invertebrates. Evidence showed the hippocampus and its connections with the cortex as crucial for the consolidation of declarative or explicit memories. However, the circuits responsible for processing of implicit memories are still poorly understood. It is suggested that the route amygdalo-nigrostriatal is of great importance for associative learning. Lesions in the dorsal striatum generate lower retention of conditioned fear in rats. Previous studies have shown that fear conditioning can be studied in anesthetized rats, although the recall is smaller compared to animals that had been trained during wakefulness. Thus, by providing a superior quality of electrophysiological recordings and eliminate any activity patterns caused by motor activity, this type of preparation is a useful tool to investigate how the encoding and transmission of information in neural networks involved in the processing of fear conditioning. The objective of this project is to study the relationship between: (1) unitary neural activity and (2) the dorsal striatum oscillatory patterns and processes of acquisition and retention of conditioned fear in rats. We intend to investigate whether there is retention of associative learning in an electrophysiological level. For this study the electrophysiological response of the dorsal striatum before and after withholding of learning.