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Temporary disruption of fear-potentiated startle following PKMζ inhibition in the amygdala

Nature Neuroscience volume 14, pages 295–296 (2011)Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 23 November 2011

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Abstract

We examined whether protein kinase M zeta (PKMζ) inhibition in the amygdala permanently disrupts fear memory by testing retention at various intervals after PKMζ blockade. Although the expression of fear memory was disrupted when the inhibitor was applied shortly before testing, it had no effect when rats were tested with longer retention intervals. These results suggest that PKMζ inhibition does not erase memory, but temporarily disrupts expression of memory.

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Figure 1: Effect of PKMζ inhibition in the amygdala on olfactory-mediated fear-potentiated startle.
Figure 2: Temporary disruption of fear memory following PKMζ blockade in the amygdala.
Figure 3: PKMζ blockade in the amygdala only disrupts memory at long retention intervals if rats are tested shortly after infusion.

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Change history

  • 15 August 2011

    In the version of this article initially published, the numbers of rats reported in the legend of Figure 3a were transposed with those in the legend of Figure 3b. The correct values are (a) ZIP, n = 6; SCR ZIP, n=8; and (b) ZIP and SCR ZIP, n = 7 each. In all cases, the correct numbers were used for the analyses, so the statistics reported remain accurate. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Gafford for comments on the manuscript. This research was supported by grants R37 MH047840 (to M.D.) and F32 MH090700 (to R.G.P.) from the US National Institutes of Health. Support was also provided by the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (National Science Foundation agreement IBN-987675) and by an US National Institutes of Health/National Center for Research Resources base grant (P51RR000165) to Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ryan G Parsons & Michael Davis

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  1. Ryan G Parsons
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  2. Michael Davis
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Contributions

R.G.P. designed and carried out the experiments, analyzed the results, wrote the initial manuscript and was involved in the revisions. M.D. was involved in the experimental design, helped interpret the data and contributed to writing and revising the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ryan G Parsons.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–3 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 136 kb)

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Parsons, R., Davis, M. Temporary disruption of fear-potentiated startle following PKMζ inhibition in the amygdala. Nat Neurosci 14, 295–296 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2745

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