Content area
Abstract
The amygdala is a key brain region mediating fear, anxiety and emotional learning. It is thought that glutamatergic synaptic transmission and plasticity in the lateral amygdala is critical for the formation and expression of fear memory. Pavlovian fear conditioning is an animal model of emotional memory and cue-induced anxiety in which fear memory is expressed as an enduring increase in synaptic strength in the lateral amygdala. While a role for the amygdala in the formation of fear memories is well described, the modulation of subsequent amygdala physiology by fear memory, a condition similar to brain function in established anxiety disorders, has been largely unexplored. This dissertation project investigated the effect of prior fear learning on amygdala physiology using an in vitro brain slice preparation.
