Abstract
We examined context-dependent and tone-cued fear conditioning during the activity and rest periods of C57BL/6J mice. Wheel-running activity was measured continuously as a marker of circadian phase. To control the effects of light on the response, the animals were kept in a skeleton photoperiod (two 15-min light pulses per day, indicating the beginning and the end of the day). Half the animals were trained and tested for context-dependent fear conditioning 2 h after the morning light pulse; the other half were trained and tested 2 h after the evening light pulse. Animals were tested every 24 h for 5 days to analyze the conditioned response and the rate of extinction. They were then trained for tonecued fear conditioning at the same time and tested for 5 consecutive days. A significant difference between the morning and the evening groups was observed in the conditioning level and extinction rate of context-dependent fear conditioning, but not in tone-cued fear conditioning. These results suggest a modulating effect of the biological clock on the context fear-conditioning pathway.
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The National Council of Scientific Development and Technology (CNPq) of the Brazilian Government provided a doctoral-SW fellowship to V.S.V. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center for Biological Timing, by a Bristol-Myers Squibb unrestricted grant in Neuroscience to J.S.T., and by NIH Grants RO1 HL59598 to F.W.T. and P01 AG11412 to F.W.T. and J.S.T. J.S.T. is an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The authors are indebted to Erik Naylor for his valuable help with data analysis and to Diego Golombek and Kathryn Scarbrough for helpful comments.
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Valentinuzzi, V.S., Kolker, D.E., Vitaterna, M.H. et al. Effect of circadian phase on context and cued fear conditioning in C57BL/6J mice. Animal Learning & Behavior 29, 133–142 (2001). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192822
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192822