Article

Enduring effects of infant memories: infant odor-shock conditioning attenuates amygdala activity and adult fear conditioning.

Institut des Sciences Cognitives, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France.
Biological Psychiatry (impact factor: 8.28). 12/2007; 62(10):1070-9. DOI:10.1016/j.biopsych.2007.04.025 pp.1070-9
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT Early life adverse experience alters adult emotional and cognitive development. Here we assess early life learning about adverse experience and its consequences on adult fear conditioning and amygdala activity.
Neonatal rats were conditioned daily from 8-12 days-old with paired odor (conditioned stimulus, CS) .5mA shock, unpaired, odor-only, or naive (no infant conditioning). In adulthood, each infant training group was divided into three adult training groups: paired, unpaired or odor-only, using either the same infant CS odor, or a novel adult CS odor without or with the infant CS present as context. Adults were cue tested for freezing (odor in novel environment), with amygdala (14)C 2-DG autoradiography and electrophysiology assessment.
Infant paired odor-shock conditioning attenuated adult fear conditioning, but only if the same infant CS odor was used. The (14)C 2-DG activity correlated with infant paired odor-shock conditioning produced attenuated amygdala but heightened olfactory bulb activity. Electrophysiological amygdala assessment further suggests early experience causes changes in amygdala processing as revealed by increased paired-pulse facilitation in adulthood.
This suggests some enduring effects of early life adversity (shock) are under CS control and dependent upon learning for their impact on later adult fear learning.

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    Article: Postnatal exposure to synthetic predator odor (TMT) induces quantitative modification in fear-related behaviors during adulthood without change in corticosterone levels.
    R Hacquemand, G Pourie, L Jacquot, G Brand
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    ABSTRACT: Environmental stimuli and adverse experiences in early life may result in behavioral and physiological changes in adulthood. In several animal species, the odors cues are crucial in the setting of adaptive behaviors, especially towards predators. However, little is known about the effects of postnatal exposure to predator odor on the later physiological and behavioral responses to this natural stressor. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a postnatal exposure to synthetic predator odor (TMT) in mice pups on later adult fear-related behaviors and corticosterone levels in response to this specific stimulus. Pups postnatally exposed to only water showed later in adult life behavioral responses when exposed to TMT that were statistically different from mice that were exposed as neonates to TMT. In addition, mice exposed as neonates to TMT showed a decrease of fear-related behaviors while no differences occurred in the corticosterone levels between both groups.
    Behavioural brain research 12/2010; 215(1):58-62. · 3.22 Impact Factor
Data provided are for informational purposes only. Although carefully collected, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The impact factor represents a rough estimation of the journal's impact factor and does not reflect the actual current impact factor. Publisher conditions are provided by RoMEO. Differing provisions from the publisher's actual policy or licence agreement may be applicable.

Keywords

14)C 2-DG activity correlated
 
14)C 2-DG autoradiography
 
adult fear
 
adult fear conditioning
 
adult training groups
 
amygdala activity
 
Electrophysiological amygdala assessment
 
electrophysiology assessment
 
enduring effects
 
experience causes changes
 
infant CS odor
 
infant CS present
 
infant paired odor-shock conditioning
 
infant training group
 
life adverse experience alters adult emotional
 
life adversity
 
Neonatal rats
 
novel adult CS odor
 
olfactory bulb activity
 
paired-pulse facilitation