In this study, optogenetic excitation of auditory inputs to the lateral amygdala was used as a conditioning stimulus instead of auditory tone presentation. Pairing the optical conditioning stimulus with footshock resulted in long-term potentiation (LTP) at stimulated lateral amygdala synapses. Optogenetic induction of long-term depression (LTD) inactivated this memory, which could be optogenetically reactivated by application of an LTP stimulation protocol. Thus, these data support a causal link between LTP, LTD and associative memory.
References
Nabavi, S. et al. Engineering a memory with LTD and LTP. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13294 (2014)
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Lewis, S. Engineering memories. Nat Rev Neurosci 15, 429 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3779
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3779