Fear Circuits in the Amygdala: Serial or Parallel Processing?

所有的生物体都利用环境刺激以适应的方式指导它们的行为。适应性行为的一个重要类别涉及对威胁、导致或预示伤害的刺激做出反应。这个项目的总体目标是解决一些关于神经回路的基本问题，通过这些神经回路，习得性刺激触发对危险或威胁刺激的反应。为了研究这一点，这些研究者将使用行为学、生理学和解剖学的方法来理解已经获得威胁唤起特性的中性刺激是如何在杏仁核中处理的，杏仁核已知是对威胁作出反应的关键。一个主要的争论是，恐惧（引起威胁的）刺激是否必须像许多研究表明的那样，通过外侧核进入杏仁核，或者它是否也可能通过中央核进入杏仁核。这两种模式分别被称为杏仁核的序列模式和平行模式。提出的研究将检验哪种模式最可行。该项目预测了序列模型的正确性。这项工作将扩大我们对生物体如何适应危险环境条件的理解，其结果也将进一步加深我们对情感信息学习和记忆存储基础回路的理解。该项目将为培养博士后、博士和本科生提供机会，学习情感、学习和记忆神经科学的基本方法。

All organisms use environmental stimuli to guide their behavior in adaptive ways. One important class of adaptive behaviors involves responding to threats, stimuli that cause or predict harm. The overall goal of this project is to address some fundamental issues about the neural circuitry through which learned stimuli trigger responses to dangerous or threatening stimuli. To study this these investigators will use behavioral, physiological and anatomical approaches to understand how neutral stimulus that has acquired threat-arousing properties is processed in the amygdala, which is known to be crucially involved in responding to threats. A major controversy has been whether a fearful (threat-arousing) stimulus must enter the amygdala via the lateral nucleus, as much research has suggested, or whether it may also enter the amygdala via the central nucleus. These are called the serial and parallel models of the amygdala, respectively. The studies proposed will test which model is most viable. This project predicts that the serial model is correct. This work will expand our understanding of how organisms adapt to dangerous environmental conditions and the results will also further our understanding of the circuits underlying the learning and memory storage of emotional information. The project will offer the opportunity for training postdoctoral, doctoral, and undergraduate students in basic approaches to the neuroscience of emotion, learning, and memory.