Abstract
The formation of fear memory to a specific stimulus leads to subsequent fearful response to that stimulus. However, it is not apparent whether the formation of fear memory can affect other memories. We study whether specific fearful experience leading to fear memory affects different memories formation and extinction. We revealed that cued fear conditioning, but not unpaired or naïve training, inhibited the extinction of conditioned taste aversion (CTA) memory that was formed after fear conditioning training in rats. Fear conditioning had no effect on retrieval of CTA memory but specifically impaired its extinction. Extinguished fear memory, after fear extinction training, had no effect on future CTA memory extinction. Fear conditioning had no effect on CTA memory extinction if CTA memory was formed before fear conditioning. Conditioned taste aversion had no effect on fear conditioning memory extinction. We conclude that active cued fear conditioning memory can affect specifically the extinction, but not the formation, of future different memory.
Highlights
Ample studies have shown that when a specific sensory stimulus occurs together with a fearful event, long-term fear memory to the stimulus is formed (LeDoux, 2000)
CUED FEAR CONDITIONING IMPAIRS THE EXTINCTION OF FUTURE MEMORY We were interested to explore the possibility that fearful experience leading to long-term fear memory could affect the extinction of a different memory
In this study we show that cued fear conditioning impairs the extinction, but not the retrieval, of different memory formed for conditioned taste aversion (CTA)
Summary
Ample studies have shown that when a specific sensory stimulus occurs together with a fearful event, long-term fear memory to the stimulus is formed (LeDoux, 2000). In this study we were interested to explore whether fear learning might affect the formation and extinction of different memories. Alteration of different memory formation and extinction after fear learning may serve to adjust memory performance and behavior in the changing fearful environment. Extinction of memory occurs when the conditioned stimulus (CS) cues are presented alone without the unconditioned stimulus (US; Pavlov, 1927). It does not reflect forgetting of the original learning (e.g., the fearful event), but rather relearning of a new association of the CS with the absence of the original reinforcement (Rescorla, 1996). Impairment of extinction is associated with behavioral dysfunction and with brain disorders such as in post-traumatic stress disorder (Milad et al, 2008, 2009; Norrholm et al, 2011; Milad and Quirk, 2012)
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