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.