Mouse study suggests how hearing a warning sound turns into fearing it over time

Friday, June 30, 2017 - 07:32 in Psychology & Sociology

The music from the movie “Jaws” is a sound that many people have learned to associate with a fear of sharks. Just hearing the music can cause the sensation of this fear to surface, but neuroscientists do not have a full understanding of how that process works. Now an adult mouse model reveals that changes in lattice-like structures in the brain known as perineuronal nets are necessary to “capture” an auditory fear association and “haul” it in as a longer-term memory. The journal Neuron published the findings by scientists at Emory University and McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate. The findings could aid research into how to help combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “We’ve identified a new mechanism — involving the regulation of perineuronal nets in an adult auditory cortex — that contributes to learning an association between an auditory warning and a fearful event,” says Robert Liu, a...

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