Development and Sex Differentiation of Context Fear Neural Circuits

理解发作性/海马型脑性痴呆的发生和发展 雄性和雌性动物基于情感/杏仁核的学习和记忆系统可能导致 在教育、焦虑解调剂和对神经的详细了解方面取得了重大进展 学习和记忆的基础。我们从基本的观察开始，学习和 与成人相比，儿童和幼年动物的记忆是特别不同的 哺乳动物的对应物。我们的中心假设是，在发育早期，情感神经 回路主导学习，后来，认知神经回路出现，进一步调节 习得的行为。此外，这些存储系统的发展和功能分别是 受围产期性腺激素影响，导致学习和发育的性别分化 记忆。 这一假说的基础是，晚熟的海马体和前额叶 皮层回路被微调以编码上下文-空间元素的模式，并且在测试中 能够充分检索相同的元素模式。此模式完成视图 知觉学习与杏仁基底外侧核和中央杏仁核的知识相结合 微电路在发育早期出现，对情绪学习至关重要，包括 恐惧。 我们通过使用标准的和修改过的语境恐惧条件反射来解决这些问题 手术结合神经解剖学工具创造全脑功能神经 男性和男性在发育过程中的学习和记忆基础活动图 雌性老鼠。这些数据将用于创建所有原始数据的开放访问数据库， 功能图和群体分析。此外，这些数据将用于针对停用 情境恐惧记忆获得、保持和提取的关键神经通路。

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.