Source Paper
Stimulation of Medial Prefrontal Cortex Decreases the Responsiveness of Central Amygdala Output Neurons
Gregory J. Quirk, Ekaterina Likhtik, Joe Guillaume Pelletier, Denis Paré
Journal of Neuroscience • 2003
Auditory Fear Conditioning and Extinction
Objective: Test the hypothesis that medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) inhibits conditioned fear via feedforward inhibition of central amygdala (Ce) output neurons during extinction of auditory fear conditioning
This is a Auditory Fear Conditioning and Extinction protocol using rat as the model organism. The procedure involves 5 procedural steps, 1 equipment items. Extracted from a 2003 paper published in Journal of Neuroscience.
Model and subjects
rat
Study window
Estimated timing pending
Core workflow
Auditory fear conditioning • Extinction training • Extracellular recording from central amygdala neurons
Primary readouts
- Responsiveness of central amygdala output neurons to synaptic inputs
- Effect of mPFC prestimulation on Ce neuron firing
- Transmission of impulses from basolateral amygdala to central nucleus
Key equipment and reagents
Verified items
0
Direct vendor links
0
Use this page as an execution guide, then fall back to the source paper whenever you need exact exclusions, dosing details, or assay-specific caveats.
Confirm first
- Verify the animal model, intervention setup, and collection timepoints against the source paper.
- Check that every direct vendor link matches the exact specification your lab plans to run.
Use the page like this
- Work through the protocol steps in order and use the inline vendor chips only when you need to source or verify an item.
- Jump to Experimental Context for readouts, data shape, and analysis flow before planning downstream analysis.
Protocol Steps
Start here. The step list is optimized for running the experiment, with direct vendor links available inline when you need to source a cited item.
Auditory fear conditioning
Rats undergo fear conditioning where a tone predicts footshock occurrence
Note: This is the initial conditioning phase before extinction
View evidence from paper
“In extinction of auditory fear conditioning, rats learn that a tone no longer predicts the occurrence of a footshock”
Extinction training
Rats learn that the tone no longer predicts footshock, establishing extinction of the conditioned fear response
Note: Extinction phase where conditioned fear is inhibited
View evidence from paper
“In extinction of auditory fear conditioning, rats learn that a tone no longer predicts the occurrence of a footshock”
Extracellular recording from central amygdala neurons
Record extracellularly from physiologically identified brainstem-projecting central nucleus neurons to measure their responsiveness
Note: Neurons must be identified as projecting to brainstem
View evidence from paper
“Recording extracellularly from physiologically identified brainstem-projecting Ce neurons, we tested the effect of mPFC prestimulation on Ce responsiveness to synaptic input”
mPFC prestimulation
Apply prestimulation to medial prefrontal cortex and measure its effect on central amygdala output neuron responsiveness
Note: Tests the hypothesis that mPFC inhibits conditioned fear via feedforward inhibition
View evidence from paper
“mPFC prestimulation dramatically reduced the responsiveness of Ce output neurons to inputs from the insular cortex and BLA”
Measure Ce neuron responsiveness to synaptic inputs
Assess responsiveness of central amygdala output neurons to inputs from insular cortex and basolateral amygdala
Note: Measure changes in responsiveness following mPFC prestimulation
View evidence from paper
“mPFC prestimulation dramatically reduced the responsiveness of Ce output neurons to inputs from the insular cortex and BLA”