Journal article
Representation of Fear of Heights by Basolateral Amygdala Neurons
The Journal of neuroscience, v 41(5), pp 1080-1091
03 Feb 2021
PMID: 33436527
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Fear of heights is evolutionarily important for survival, yet it is unclear how and which brain regions process such height threats. Given the importance of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in mediating both learned and innate fear, we investigated how BLA neurons may respond to high-place exposure in freely behaving male mice. We found that a discrete set of BLA neurons exhibited robust firing increases when the mouse was either exploring or placed on a high place, accompanied by increased heart rate and freezing. Importantly, these high-place fear neurons were only activated under height threats, but not looming, acoustic startle, predatory odor, or mild anxiogenic conditions. Furthermore, after a fear-conditioning procedure, these high-place fear neurons developed conditioned responses to the context, but not the cue, indicating a convergence in processing of dangerous/risky contextual information. Our results provide insights into the neuronal representation of the fear of heights and may have implications for the treatment of excessive fear disorders.
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Details
- Title
- Representation of Fear of Heights by Basolateral Amygdala Neurons
- Creators
- Jun Liu - Drexel UniversityLongnian Lin - East China Normal UniversityDong Wang - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- The Journal of neuroscience, v 41(5), pp 1080-1091
- Publisher
- Soc Neuroscience
- Number of pages
- 12
- Grant note
- 31661143038 / National Natural Science Foundation of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) R01-MH-119102 / National Institute of Mental Health/National Institutes of Health; United States Department of Health & Human Services; National Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA; NIH National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Neurobiology and Anatomy
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000616761800007
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85102018150
- Other Identifier
- 991019169805804721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Neurosciences