中央杏仁核（主要由GABAergic抑制性神經(jīng)元組成）是大腦中處理“巴甫洛夫條件恐懼”的地方,。在本期Nature上發(fā)表文章的兩個小組，利用很不相同的,、但卻互補(bǔ)的實(shí)驗(yàn)方法得到了關(guān)于決定條件恐懼反應(yīng)的功能架構(gòu)的相似結(jié)論,。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，有兩個微型回路涉及其中：一個是恐懼獲取所必需的,，另一個是條件恐懼反應(yīng)是必需的,。
Haubensak等人利用基因功能操縱方法識別出在門控“學(xué)得的恐懼”中扮演關(guān)鍵角色的GABAergic神經(jīng)元的一個亞組,。Ciocchi等人在活體中把電生理、光遺傳學(xué)和藥理學(xué)方法結(jié)合起來控制小鼠的行為,，以此識別出三個不同功能的神經(jīng)元類型,，這些神經(jīng)元嵌入在一個具有高度組織性的局部“去抑制”網(wǎng)絡(luò)中。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦英文摘要：
Nature doi:10.1038/nature09553
Genetic dissection of an amygdala microcircuit that gates conditioned fear
Wulf Haubensak,Prabhat S. Kunwar,Haijiang Cai,Stephane Ciocchi,Nicholas R. Wall,Ravikumar Ponnusamy,Jonathan Biag,Hong-Wei Dong,Karl Deisseroth,Edward M. Callaway,Michael S. Fanselow,Andreas Lüthi& David J. [email protected]
The role of different amygdala nuclei (neuroanatomical subdivisions) in processing Pavlovian conditioned fear has been studied extensively, but the function of the heterogeneous neuronal subtypes within these nuclei remains poorly understood. Here we use molecular genetic approaches to map the functional connectivity of a subpopulation of GABA-containing neurons, located in the lateral subdivision of the central amygdala (CEl), which express protein kinase C-δ (PKC-δ). Channelrhodopsin-2-assisted circuit mapping in amygdala slices and cell-specific viral tracing indicate that PKC-δ+ neurons inhibit output neurons in the medial central amygdala (CEm), and also make reciprocal inhibitory synapses with PKC-δ? neurons in CEl. Electrical silencing of PKC-δ+ neurons in vivo suggests that they correspond to physiologically identified units that are inhibited by the conditioned stimulus, called CEloff units. This correspondence, together with behavioural data, defines an inhibitory microcircuit in CEl that gates CEm output to control the level of conditioned freezing.
