Proceedings of Annual Meeting of the Physiological Society of Japan
Proceedings of Annual Meeting of the Physiological Society of Japan
Session ID : 3P2-126
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Auditory fear conditioning increases cell proliferation in the basomedial nucleus of rat amygdala
*Takatoshi MoriTakahiro MoriyaKenji SoHiroki OzawaKazuyuki Shinohara
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Abstract
It has been known that proliferating cells exist in the amygdala, but their functions remain to be clarified. On the other hand, the amygdala is known to play essential roles in the emotional learning. Therefore, we examined whether the auditory fear conditioning affects the cell proliferation in the rat amygdala as well as other brain areas. Male SD rats were used. On day 1, the rats of conditioned group received five pairings of tone (20 sec) as the conditioned stimulus (CS) and foot shock (1 sec) as the unconditioned stimulus (US) (CS/US group). The control group rats received only CS (CS group). After the training, rats were injected with BrdU. On day 2, rats were placed in a cage and exposed to the tone and their freezing responses were evaluated. Thereafter, rats were perfused and their brains were removed. Serial 40 μm-thick coronal sections of the brains were cut with a cryostat and BrdU immunohistochemistry was performed. BrdU-labeled cells were quantified in each brain area. There was no statistical difference in the number of BrdU-labeled cells in subventricular zone, septal nucleus, subgranular zone of dentate gyrus, or entire amygdala between two groups. In the basomedial amygdala (BMA), BrdU-labeled cells were more abounding in CS/US group. These results suggest that the cell proliferation in the BMA may be involved in the formation of the auditory fear conditioning. [J Physiol Sci. 2006;56 Suppl:S168]
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© 2006 The Physiological Society of Japan
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