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Associative and plastic thalamic signaling to the lateral amygdala controls fear behavior

Abstract

Decades of research support the idea that associations between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) are encoded in the lateral amygdala (LA) during fear learning. However, direct proof for the sources of CS and US information is lacking. Definitive evidence of the LA as the primary site for cue association is also missing. Here, we show that calretinin (Calr)-expressing neurons of the lateral thalamus (Calr+LT neurons) convey the association of fast CS (tone) and US (foot shock) signals upstream from the LA in mice. Calr+LT input shapes a short-latency sensory-evoked activation pattern of the amygdala via both feedforward excitation and inhibition. Optogenetic silencing of Calr+LT input to the LA prevents auditory fear conditioning. Notably, fear conditioning drives plasticity in Calr+LT neurons, which is required for appropriate cue and contextual fear memory retrieval. Collectively, our results demonstrate that Calr+LT neurons provide integrated CS–US representations to the LA that support the formation of aversive memories.

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Fig. 1: Calr+LT cells project to the LA and are activated by CS, US and US-associated CS stimuli.
Fig. 2: Selective and fast aversive cue-associated sensory signaling by Calr+LT cells.
Fig. 3: Monosynaptic brainstem inputs to Calr+LT neurons.
Fig. 4: Calr+LT neurons target the fear-conditioning-activated LA neurons and SIC.
Fig. 5: Calr+LT neurons control the multisensory activation of amygdala cells in a complex manner.
Fig. 6: Calr+LT→AMG inputs shape fear learning.
Fig. 7: Fear learning induces changes in the activity pattern of Calr+LT neurons.
Fig. 8: Calr+LT→AMG neurons control fear memory retrieval.

Data availability

Data from this study as well as material from custom products are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Code availability

Custom-written codes used to analyze data from this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Z. J. Huang, L. Acsády and S. Arthaud for providing us with transgenic mice, C. Porrero and F. Clascá for their instructions for BDA injections, N. Holderith for sharing primary antibodies, Cs. Dávid for advising us on axonal analysis and A. Szőnyi for rabies injections. The technical assistance of K. Varga, V. Kanti, J. Berczik, A. Fehér, L. Truka, R. Pop and E. Szabó-Együd in histology is acknowledged. We wish to thank the Institute of Enzymology at RCNS, Nikon Microscopy Center at IEM, Nikon Austria and the Auro-Science Consulting for kindly providing microscopy, as well as the Institute of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at RCNS for technical support. We thank L. Acsády, N. Bunford, T. L. Horváth, M. Penzo and I. Soltész for comments and discussions about the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Office for Research and Technology (FK124434 and KKP126998 to F.M., PD124034 to B.B., and FK129120 to D.H.), by the Hungarian Brain Research Program (grant numbers KTIA-NAP-13-2-2015-0010 to F.M., and 2017-1.2.1-NKP-2017-00002 to F.M. and I.U.), by the New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology (ÚNKP-19-3-III-PPKE-68 to K.K., and ÚNKP-19-4-ÁTE-8 to F.M.), by the Széchenyi 2020 Program, the Human Resource Development Operational Program, the Program of Integrated Territorial Investments in Central-Hungary (EFOP-3.6.2-16-2017-00013 and 3.6.3-VEKOP-16-2017-00002 to K.K. and I.U.; EFOP-3.6.2-16-2017-00012 to F.M.), by the Adelis Foundation (O.Y.), and by the European Research Council (ERC CoG 819496 to O.Y.). F.M. is a János Bolyai Research Fellow.

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Contributions

B.B., K.K., I.U. and F.M. designed the experiments. B.B., K.K., Á.B., A.M., J.M.V. and F.M. performed animal surgeries, immunocytochemistry and confocal analyses. B.B. and M.S. conducted behavioral experiments and analyses. K.K. and A.M. performed in vivo electrophysiological recordings and data analyses. O.Y. developed the AAV-DFO plasmid, and D.H. produced the AAV-DFO viral vector. B.B., K.K. and F.M. wrote the manuscript, which was edited by all authors.

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Correspondence to Ferenc Mátyás.

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Peer review information Nature Neuroscience thanks Fabricio H. do Monte and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–10 and Supplementary Tables 1–7.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Video 1

Green-light illumination of Calr+LT→AMG axons during fear conditioning (for the entire period of the 30 s of CS+) diminishes freezing behavior in a representative NpHR animal (right; n = 7 mice in total) compared with a representative control (YFP, left; n = 6 mice in total). The video shows behavioral responses to the seventh CS+US presentation. Related to Fig. 6d.

Supplementary Video 2

Behavioral responses evoked by the second CS+ presentation during cued fear retrieval observed in the same two animals shown in Supplementary Video 1. Related to Fig. 6e.

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Barsy, B., Kocsis, K., Magyar, A. et al. Associative and plastic thalamic signaling to the lateral amygdala controls fear behavior. Nat Neurosci 23, 625–637 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-020-0620-z

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