Source Paper
Activity in Prelimbic Cortex Is Necessary for the Expression of Learned, But Not Innate, Fears
Kevin A. Corcoran, Gregory J. Quirk
Journal of Neuroscience • 2007
Prelimbic Cortex Inactivation during Fear Conditioning
Objective: To determine whether prelimbic cortex activity is necessary for acquisition, expression of learned fears, or expression of innate fears using tetrodotoxin inactivation
This is a Prelimbic Cortex Inactivation during Fear Conditioning protocol using rat as the model organism. The procedure involves 5 procedural steps, 1 materials. Extracted from a 2007 paper published in Journal of Neuroscience.
Model and subjects
rat • Not specified • unknown • Not specified • Not specified
Study window
Estimated timing pending
Core workflow
Tetrodotoxin Inactivation During Fear Conditioning • Fear Conditioning with Tone and Context • Test Expression of Learned Fear to Tone
Primary readouts
- Freezing response to conditioned tone
- Freezing response to conditioned context
- Freezing response to innate fear stimulus (cat)
- Formation of auditory fear memories
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.
Tetrodotoxin Inactivation During Fear Conditioning
Administer tetrodotoxin to inactivate prelimbic cortex before fear conditioning trials
Note: This condition tests whether PL activity is necessary for acquisition of fear memories
View evidence from paper
“Inactivation of PL before conditioning, however, did not prevent the formation of auditory or contextual fear memories”
Fear Conditioning with Tone and Context
Pair tone and context with footshock to establish learned fear associations
Note: Footshock is used as the unconditioned stimulus
View evidence from paper
“a tone and a context that had been previously paired with footshock (learned fear)”
Test Expression of Learned Fear to Tone
Present previously conditioned tone and measure freezing response
Note: Freezing is the measured behavioral response
View evidence from paper
“Inactivation of PL reduced freezing to both a tone and a context that had been previously paired with footshock”
Test Expression of Learned Fear to Context
Present previously conditioned context and measure freezing response
Note: Freezing is the measured behavioral response
View evidence from paper
“Inactivation of PL reduced freezing to both a tone and a context that had been previously paired with footshock”
Test Expression of Innate Fear to Cat
Present cat stimulus and measure freezing response to assess innate fear
Note: Innate fear is not dependent on PL activity
View evidence from paper
“had no effect on freezing to a cat (innate fear)”