Hippocampal inhibitory control of contextual fear learning

描述（由申请人提供）：由于脑回路病理学导致的适应不良恐惧反应与多种精神疾病广泛相关，例如创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）、焦虑症和恐慌症。因此，这些疾病的临床解决方案需要更好地了解实现这些记忆功能的神经回路的基本结构和功能。在这里，我们建议应用新技术——细胞分辨率功能神经成像和基因识别的细胞类型特异性操作 行为小鼠的海马回路 - 用于研究情境恐惧学习和存储。我们的结果将告诉我们对如何学习和记忆的基本理解，并为恐惧、焦虑和记忆障碍中适应不良的恐惧反应的治疗和康复提出具体目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Maladaptive fear responses due to brain circuit pathology have been widely implicated in several psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and panic disorders. Clinical solutions to these disorders thus require a greater understanding of the basic structure and function of neural circuits implementing these memory functions. Here we propose to apply new technologies - cellular-resolution functional neural imaging and cell type-specific manipulations of genetically identified hippocampal circuits in behaving mice - for studying contextual fear learning and storage. Our result will inform our basic understanding of how we learn and remember, and suggest specific targets for treatment and rehabilitation of maladaptive fear responses in disorders of fear, anxiety, and memory.