Behavioral expression of learned fear: Updating of early memories

Carol S L Yap*, Lexine Stapinski, Rick Richardson

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    17 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The expression of learned fear emerges in a response-specific sequence where freezing occurs before fear potentiated startle (FPS) to an odor conditioned stimulus (CS; Postnatal Day [PN] 16 vs. PN 23; e.g., Hunt, 1997; Richardson, Paxinos, & Lee, 2000). Studies have shown that learned fear is expressed in a manner appropriate to the animal's age at training and not its age at test (Richardson & Fan, 2002; Richardson et al., 2000). Specifically, animals trained with an odor CS at PN 16 exhibit avoidance but not FPS when tested at PN 23. The present study shows that subsequent training with a different CS can "update" an early memory, allowing it to be expressed in a manner appropriate to the animal's age at test. This updating effect appears to be modality specific, whereby the subsequent training must involve a CS of the same sensory modality as the original training.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1467-1476
    Number of pages10
    JournalBehavioral Neuroscience
    Volume119
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2005

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Behavioral expression of learned fear: Updating of early memories'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this