Development and Sex Differentiation of Context Fear Neural Circuits

了解产后出现和发展的情节/海马为基础的， 在雄性和雌性动物中，基于情感/杏仁核的学习和记忆系统可以导致 教育、焦虑症和对神经系统的详细了解方面的重大进展 学习和记忆的基础。我们从基本的观察开始， 与成年人相比，儿童和幼年动物的记忆力特别独特 哺乳动物的对应物。我们的中心假设是，在发育的早期， 神经回路支配着学习，后来，认知神经回路出现，进一步调节 学习行为。此外，每个这些存储器系统的发展和功能是 受围产期性腺激素的影响，导致学习和 记忆 这一假设是基于这样的知识，即晚成熟的海马和前额叶 皮质回路被微调以编码上下文空间元素的模式，并且在测试中， 的模式完成视图。 感知学习与基底外侧和中央杏仁核的知识相结合， 微电路在发育早期出现，对情感学习至关重要， 恐惧 我们通过使用标准的和修改后的情境恐惧条件反射来处理这些问题 结合神经解剖学工具创建全脑功能性神经 活动映射了男性整个发育寿命中的潜在学习和记忆， 雌性大鼠这些数据将用于创建一个开放获取的所有原始数据库， 功能图和组分析。此外，这些数据将用于靶向灭活 关键的神经通路的获取，保留和检索的上下文恐惧记忆。

Understanding the post-natal emergence and progression of episodic/hippocampal based and affective/amygdala based learning and memory systems in male and female animals can lead to significant advances in education, anxiety disoders and a detailed understanding of neural basis of learning and memory. We start off with the basic observation that learning and memory in children and young animals are particulary distinct when compared to adult mammalian counterparts. Our central hypothesis is that early in development, affective neural circuits dominate learning and that later, cognitive neural circuits emerge to further regulate learned behaviors. Moreover, the development and function of each these memory systems are influenced by perinatal gonadal hormones, resulting in sex differentiation of learning and memory. This hypothesis is grounded in the knowledge that late maturing hippocampal and prefrontal cortical circuits are fine-tuned to encode patterns of contextual-spatial elements and at test are capable to sufficiently retrieve this same pattern of elements.This pattern completion view of perceptual learning is combined with the knowledge that the basolateral and central amygdala microcircuits emerge earlier in development and are crucial for emotional learning including fear. We approach these questions by using standard and modified Contextual Fear Conditioning procedures in combination with neuroanatomical tools to create whole-brain functional neural acitivity maps underlying learning and memory across developmental lifespan of the male and female rat. These data will be used to create an open access database of all raw data, functional maps and group analytics. In addition, these data will be used to target inactivation of key neural pathways in the acquisition, retention and retriveal of contextual fear memories.