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Identification of a neuronal population in the telencephalon essential for fear conditioning in zebrafish

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Biology, April 2018
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Title
Identification of a neuronal population in the telencephalon essential for fear conditioning in zebrafish
Published in
BMC Biology, April 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12915-018-0502-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Pradeep Lal, Hideyuki Tanabe, Maximiliano L. Suster, Deepak Ailani, Yuri Kotani, Akira Muto, Mari Itoh, Miki Iwasaki, Hironori Wada, Emre Yaksi, Koichi Kawakami

Abstract

Fear conditioning is a form of learning essential for animal survival and used as a behavioral paradigm to study the mechanisms of learning and memory. In mammals, the amygdala plays a crucial role in fear conditioning. In teleost, the medial zone of the dorsal telencephalon (Dm) has been postulated to be a homolog of the mammalian amygdala by anatomical and ablation studies, showing a role in conditioned avoidance response. However, the neuronal populations required for a conditioned avoidance response via the Dm have not been functionally or genetically defined. We aimed to identify the neuronal population essential for fear conditioning through a genetic approach in zebrafish. First, we performed large-scale gene trap and enhancer trap screens, and created transgenic fish lines that expressed Gal4FF, an engineered version of the Gal4 transcription activator, in specific regions in the brain. We then crossed these Gal4FF-expressing fish with the effector line carrying the botulinum neurotoxin gene downstream of the Gal4 binding sequence UAS, and analyzed the double transgenic fish for active avoidance fear conditioning. We identified 16 transgenic lines with Gal4FF expression in various brain areas showing reduced performance in avoidance responses. Two of them had Gal4 expression in populations of neurons located in subregions of the Dm, which we named 120A-Dm neurons. Inhibition of the 120A-Dm neurons also caused reduced performance in Pavlovian fear conditioning. The 120A-Dm neurons were mostly glutamatergic and had projections to other brain regions, including the hypothalamus and ventral telencephalon. Herein, we identified a subpopulation of neurons in the zebrafish Dm essential for fear conditioning. We propose that these are functional equivalents of neurons in the mammalian pallial amygdala, mediating the conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus association. Thus, the study establishes a basis for understanding the evolutionary conservation and diversification of functional neural circuits mediating fear conditioning in vertebrates.

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Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 177 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 30 17%
Student > Master 25 14%
Researcher 24 14%
Student > Bachelor 17 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 9 5%
Other 24 14%
Unknown 48 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Neuroscience 56 32%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 29 16%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 17 10%
Engineering 5 3%
Psychology 3 2%
Other 12 7%
Unknown 55 31%