Sex Differences in Context Fear Generalization and Recruitment of Hippocampus and Amygdala during Retrieval

Anxiety disorders are commonly associated with increased generalization of fear from a stress- or trauma-associated environment to a neutral context or environment. Differences in context-associated memory in males and females may contribute to increased susceptibility to anxiety disorders in women....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuropsychopharmacology (New York, N.Y.) N.Y.), 2017-01, Vol.42 (2), p.397-407
Main Authors: Keiser, Ashley A, Turnbull, Lacie M, Darian, Mara A, Feldman, Dana E, Song, Iris, Tronson, Natalie C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amygdala - physiology
Animals
Anxiety disorders
Conditioning, Classical
Fear - physiology
Female
Gender differences
Generalization (Psychology) - physiology
Hippocampus - physiology
Male
Memory
Memory Consolidation - physiology
Mental Recall - physiology
Mice, Inbred C57BL
Original
Post traumatic stress disorder
Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos - metabolism
Sex Characteristics
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Anxiety disorders are commonly associated with increased generalization of fear from a stress- or trauma-associated environment to a neutral context or environment. Differences in context-associated memory in males and females may contribute to increased susceptibility to anxiety disorders in women. Here we examined sex differences in context fear generalization and its neural correlates. We observed stronger context fear conditioning and more generalization of fear to a similar context in females than males. In addition, context preexposure increased fear conditioning in males and decreased generalization in females. Accordingly, males showed stronger cFos activity in dorsal hippocampus during memory retrieval and context generalization, whereas females showed preferential recruitment of basal amygdala. Together, these findings are consistent with previous research showing that hippocampal activity correlates with reduced context fear generalization. Differential competition between hippocampus and amygdala-dependent processes may thus contribute to sex differences in retrieval of context fear and greater generalization of fear-associated memory.
ISSN:0893-133X
1740-634X
DOI:10.1038/npp.2016.174