Characterizing the Contributions of Discrete Hippocampal Subfields to Contextual and Cued Fear Conditioning Using Multiple Measures

越来越多的证据表明，许多心理和情绪障碍，包括恐惧症和创伤后应激综合征，可能在一定程度上反映了对环境刺激的条件（习得）情绪反应。在许多用于探索条件情绪反应习得的成功方法中，对大鼠巴甫洛夫恐惧条件反射的习得、表达和保留的研究取得了成功。在这些研究中，最初的中性刺激（条件刺激[CS]，例如音调、光线或气味）和令人厌恶的非条件刺激（[US]）通常以正向方式配对。在几次配对之后，随后再次暴露于CS或CS- us配对发生的环境中，会引起大鼠的各种行为和生理反应，包括心率和血压增加，排便和排尿增加，以及冻结行为，这些都被认为反映了内部的“恐惧”状态。嗅觉刺激在恐惧条件反射中可以有效地作为CS和情境刺激，并且控制听觉和视觉刺激条件下情绪反应获得的基本原则可以扩展到嗅觉系统。拟议的研究将检查一个特定的大脑结构，海马体，在多大程度上参与各种形式的巴甫洛夫恐惧条件反射。基于神经解剖学和电生理学的证据，我们假设海马体内不同的子区域将有助于不同的“类型”的情绪学习。具体来说，背侧海马体优先参与对地点的情感意义的学习，腹侧海马体优先参与对饥饿或口渴等内部状态的情感意义的学习，以及整个海马体参与对气味的情感意义的学习的假设将得到验证。总的来说，这些研究将显著增强我们目前对海马体在情绪学习中的作用以及一般的学习和记忆过程的理解。该项目将涉及本科生，并将从罗格斯大学“科学与工程研究”项目中招募少数民族学生。

Accumulating evidence suggests that a number of psychological and emotional disorders, including phobias and post-traumatic stress syndrome, may in part reflect conditioned (learned) emotional responses to environmental stimuli. Among the many successful approaches used to explore the acquisition of conditioned emotional responses has been an examination of the acquisition, expression, and retention of Pavlovian fear conditioning in rats. In these studies, an initially neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus [CS], for example a tone, light, or odor) and an aversive unconditioned stimulus ([US], are typically paired in a forward manner. Following several pairings, subsequent re-exposure to the CS or to the context in which CS-US pairing took place elicits in rats a variety of behavioral and physiological responses, including increased heart rate and blood pressure, increased defecation and urination, and freezing behavior, collectively thought to reflect an internal state of "fear". An olfactory stimulus can serve effectively as a both a CS and a contextual stimulus in fear conditioning, and that the basic principles governing the acquisition of emotional responses conditioned to auditory and visual stimuli can be extended to the olfactory system. The proposed studies will examine the extent to which a particular brain structure, the hippocampus, participates in a variety of forms of Pavlovian fear conditioning. Based on both neuroanatomical and electrophysiological evidence, it is hypothesized that different sub-areas within the hippocampus will contribute to different "types" of emotional learning. Specifically, the hypotheses that dorsal hippocampus participates preferentially in learning about the emotional significance of places and that the ventral hippocampus is preferentially involved in learning about the emotional significance of internal states such as hunger or thirst, and that the entire hippocampus is involved in learning about the emotional significance of odors will be tested. Collectively these studies will significantly enhance our current understanding of the role of the hippocampus in emotional learning specifically and learning and memory processes in general. This project will involve undergraduate students and will recruit minority students from the Rutgers University Program "Research in Science and Engineering:".