本周Neuron发表文章认为杏仁核可能是人类记住害怕情形的关键部位，为杏仁核的对害怕的记忆通路研究提供了更多的，更可靠的依据。
Neuron, Vol 40, 1013-1022, 4 December 2003
Auditory-Evoked Spike Firing in the Lateral Amygdala and Pavlovian Fear Conditioning: Mnemonic Code or Fear Bias?
Ki A. Goosens 1, Jennifer A. Hobin 1, and Stephen Maren *1,2
Amygdala neuroplasticity has emerged as a candidate substrate for Pavlovian fear memory. By this view, conditional stimulus (CS)-evoked activity represents a mnemonic code that initiates the expression of fear behaviors. However, a fear state may nonassociatively enhance sensory processing, biasing CS-evoked activity in amygdala neurons. Here we describe experiments that dissociate auditory CS-evoked spike firing in the lateral amygdala (LA) and both conditional fear behavior and LA excitability in rats. We found that the expression of conditional freezing and increased LA excitability was neither necessary nor sufficient for the expression of conditional increases in CS-evoked spike firing. Rather, conditioning-related changes in CS-evoked spike firing were solely determined by the associative history of the CS. Thus, our data support a model in which associative activity in the LA encodes fear memory and contributes to the expression of learned fear behaviors.
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