恐惧记忆会诱导大鼠外侧杏仁核（LA）印刻神经元之间的突触电位增强，这一成果由瑞士洛桑大学罗恩-斯托普研究团队经过不懈努力而取得。2024年6月13日，国际学术期刊《自然-神经科学》发表了这一成果。

研究人员利用体外12片钳和32个体内电极对恐惧条件反射大鼠的LA进行电生理记录，并结合活动依赖性荧光、光遗传标记和召回，确定了LA主要神经元之间存在的以簇为单位的稀疏连接网络。恐惧记忆特异性地导致学习和招募神经元之间的突触连接电位增强。这些关于LA自身兴奋网络中突触可塑性的发现可能暗示了一个基本原理，即少量锥体神经元可以编码大量记忆。

研究人员表示，外侧杏仁核通过增强与威胁相关的感觉输入来编码恐惧记忆，在此过程中，每个恐惧记忆片段会招募10-30%的神经元。然而，尚不清楚LA中局部网络是如何处理这些信息的，以及它是否也参与调控这些信息的储存。

附：英文原文

Title: Fear learning induces synaptic potentiation between engram neurons in the rat lateral amygdala

Author: Abatis, Marios, Perin, Rodrigo, Niu, Ruifang, van den Burg, Erwin, Hegoburu, Chloe, Kim, Ryang, Okamura, Michiko, Bito, Haruhiko, Markram, Henry, Stoop, Ron

Issue&Volume: 2024-06-13

Abstract: The lateral amygdala (LA) encodes fear memories by potentiating sensory inputs associated with threats and, in the process, recruits 10–30% of its neurons per fear memory engram. However, how the local network within the LA processes this information and whether it also plays a role in storing it are still largely unknown. Here, using ex vivo 12-patch-clamp and in vivo 32-electrode electrophysiological recordings in the LA of fear-conditioned rats, in combination with activity-dependent fluorescent and optogenetic tagging and recall, we identified a sparsely connected network between principal LA neurons that is organized in clusters. Fear conditioning specifically causes potentiation of synaptic connections between learning-recruited neurons. These findings of synaptic plasticity in an autoassociative excitatory network of the LA may suggest a basic principle through which a small number of pyramidal neurons could encode a large number of memories.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-024-01676-6

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01676-6