Abstract
Changes in spine morphology may underlie memory formation, but the molecular mechanisms that subserve such alterations are poorly understood. Here we show that fear conditioning in rats leads to the movement of profilin, an actin polymerization–regulatory protein, into dendritic spines in the lateral amygdala and that these spines undergo enlargements in their postsynaptic densities (PSDs). A greater proportion of profilin-containing spines with enlarged PSDs could contribute to the enhancement of associatively induced synaptic responses in the lateral amygdala following fear learning.
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Acknowledgements
We thank D. Bush for his helpful discussions about this work. This research was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants MH58911, MH46516, MH38774 and MH067048.
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Supplementary Fig. 1
A summary of the results obtained in this study. (PDF 13 kb)
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Lamprecht, R., Farb, C., Rodrigues, S. et al. Fear conditioning drives profilin into amygdala dendritic spines. Nat Neurosci 9, 481–483 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1672
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1672
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