Topic: fear extinction learning

The ability to extinguish fear responses to stimuli that no longer predict danger is critical for adaptive behavior and increases the likelihood of survival. During fear extinction, dopamine (DA) neurons signal the absence of the expected aversive outcome, and this extinction prediction error (EPE) signal is crucial for initiating and driving extinction learning. However, the neural circuits underlying the EPE signal have remained elusive. Here, we investigate the input-output circuitry of EPE-encoding DAneurons in male mice. By employing projection-specific fiber photometry and optogenetics,

The brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) is a major source of noradrenaline to the forebrain and plays important roles in emotional learning. Though the LC receives synaptic inputs from the medial prefrontal cortex, a brain region important in cognitive and emotional processing, it is unclear whether and how prefrontal regions influence the LC particularly during fear extinction learning. To address this question, we first examined the detailed anatomical connectivity from prefrontal subregions to the LC in rats. Retrograde and anterograde tracing experiments showed that LC noradrenergic neurons rec