Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Cerebellar modulation of fear behaviour and memory encoding in the PAG

CL Lawrenson, View ORCID ProfileE Paci, J Pickford, View ORCID ProfileRAR Drake, View ORCID ProfileBM Lumb, R Apps
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.17.431584
CL Lawrenson
1School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: elena.paci@bristol.ac.uk
E Paci
1School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for E Paci
  • For correspondence: elena.paci@bristol.ac.uk
J Pickford
1School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
RAR Drake
1School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for RAR Drake
BM Lumb
1School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for BM Lumb
R Apps
1School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

The pivotal role of the periaqueductal grey (PAG) in fear learning is reinforced by the identification of neurons in rat ventral PAG (vPAG) that encode fear memory through signalling the onset and offset of an auditory conditioned stimulus during presentation of the unreinforced conditioned tone during retrieval. Some units only display CS+ onset or offset responses and the two signals differ in extinction sensitivity, suggesting they are independent of each other. In addition, understanding cerebellar contributions to survival circuits is advanced by the discovery that: (i) reversible inactivation of the medial cerebellar nucleus (MCN) during fear consolidation leads in subsequent retrieval to: (a) disruption of the temporal precision of vPAG offset, but not onset responses to the unreinforced conditioned tone, and (b) an increase in duration of freezing behaviour. And (ii) chemogenetic manipulation of the MCN-vPAG projection during fear acquisition: (a) reduces the occurrence of fear- related ultrasonic vocalisations and (b) during subsequent retrieval, slows the extinction rate of fear- related freezing. These findings show that the cerebellum is part of the survival network that regulates fear memory processes at multiple timescales and in multiple ways; raising the possibility that dysfunctional interactions in the cerebellar-survival network may underlie fear-related disorders and comorbidities.

Impact Statement Cerebellar-periaqueductal grey interactions contribute to fear conditioned processes and, as such, provide a novel target for treating psychological conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • ↵* Contributions: Joint first author.

  • We have included results from additional experiments that reinforce our original findings, increase numbers in some experiments and clarified some points.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted December 11, 2021.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Cerebellar modulation of fear behaviour and memory encoding in the PAG
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Cerebellar modulation of fear behaviour and memory encoding in the PAG
CL Lawrenson, E Paci, J Pickford, RAR Drake, BM Lumb, R Apps
bioRxiv 2021.02.17.431584; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.17.431584
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Cerebellar modulation of fear behaviour and memory encoding in the PAG
CL Lawrenson, E Paci, J Pickford, RAR Drake, BM Lumb, R Apps
bioRxiv 2021.02.17.431584; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.17.431584

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Neuroscience
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3601)
  • Biochemistry (7567)
  • Bioengineering (5521)
  • Bioinformatics (20782)
  • Biophysics (10325)
  • Cancer Biology (7978)
  • Cell Biology (11634)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6602)
  • Ecology (10200)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13610)
  • Genetics (9539)
  • Genomics (12844)
  • Immunology (7919)
  • Microbiology (19538)
  • Molecular Biology (7657)
  • Neuroscience (42080)
  • Paleontology (308)
  • Pathology (1257)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2201)
  • Physiology (3267)
  • Plant Biology (7038)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1294)
  • Synthetic Biology (1951)
  • Systems Biology (5426)
  • Zoology (1116)