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Fear conditioning induces guinea pig auditory cortex activation by foot shock alone

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Abstract

The present study used an optical imaging paradigm to investigate plastic changes in the auditory cortex induced by fear conditioning, in which a sound (conditioned stimulus, CS) was paired with an electric foot-shock (unconditioned stimulus, US). We report that, after conditioning, auditory information could be retrieved on the basis of an electric foot-shock alone. Before conditioning, the auditory cortex showed no response to a foot-shock presented in the absence of sound. In contrast, after conditioning, the mere presentation of a foot-shock without any sound succeeded in eliciting activity in the auditory cortex. Additionally, the magnitude of the optical response in the auditory cortex correlated with variation in the electrocardiogram (correlation coefficient: −0.68). The area activated in the auditory cortex, in response to the electric foot-shock, statistically significantly had a larger cross-correlation value for tone response to the CS sound (12 kHz) compared to the non-CS sounds in normal conditioning group. These results suggest that integration of different sensory modalities in the auditory cortex was established by fear conditioning.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the 21st Century Center of Excellence (COE) Program and the Global COE Program at Tamagawa University and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) 19200014, Grants-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) 21700435 and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas 21120006 from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.

We are grateful to H. Fujii for useful advice and discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tamagawa University Brain Science Institute, 6-1-1 Tamagawa-gakuen, Machida, Tokyo, 194-8610, Japan

    Yoshinori Ide, Muneyoshi Takahashi, Johan Lauwereyns, Minoru Tsukada & Takeshi Aihara

  2. Graduate School of Systems Life Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan

    Muneyoshi Takahashi & Johan Lauwereyns

  3. Faculty of Medicine, Louis Pasteur University, 67085, Strasbourg, France

    Guy Sandner

  4. Faculty of Engineering, Tamagawa University, Tokyo, 194-8610, Japan

    Takeshi Aihara

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  1. Yoshinori Ide
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  2. Muneyoshi Takahashi
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  3. Johan Lauwereyns
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  4. Guy Sandner
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  5. Minoru Tsukada
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Correspondence to Yoshinori Ide.

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Ide, Y., Takahashi, M., Lauwereyns, J. et al. Fear conditioning induces guinea pig auditory cortex activation by foot shock alone. Cogn Neurodyn 7, 67–77 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-012-9224-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-012-9224-y

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