2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Neural mechanism underlying cognitive operations in emotional learning systems
| Project/Area Number |
21K15212
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| Research Institution | Institute of Physical and Chemical Research |
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Principal Investigator |
GU XIAOWEI 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 脳神経科学研究センター, 研究員 (80846692)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2021-04-01 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | emotional learning / mPFC / amygdala / fear inference / rodent |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In this year, I finished the setup of all hardware necessary for this project. The protocols of animal behavior and surgery were all well established. Based on these protocols, I used calcium imaging to detect the neuronal activity in rats mPFC and amygdala when animals forming inferred fear memory. Up to now, I have collected the firing pattern of over 2000 mPFC neurons, 300 mPFC neurons projecting to amygdala and 500 amygdala neurons. I found that the mPFC neurons and amygdala neurons both have significant representation for events in inference including direct fear memory, inferred fear memory and unconditioned stimulus. Both mPFC neurons and amygdala neurons. Interestingly, mPFC neurons projecting to amygdala have more significant firing property change after fear conditioning than other mPFC neurons. I also used optogenetics to identify the causality of the involvement of mPFC neurons in fear inference. Only the inhibition of the projection of mPFC neurons to amygdala during the recall of fear memory can specifically affect the behavioral readout of animals during fear inference. Inhibiting the projection during fear conditioning cannot affect later fear responses of animals during test. Also the inhibition of the whole mPFC reduced bother inferred and direct fear responses. The preliminary results were presented in JNS 2021 by poster presentation.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
During the study of this year, I successfully collected neuronal activity because of preliminary preparation. All facilities works well and stably, which makes my progress followed my plan. Although this year the supply of material still not fully recovered from COVID, luckily I still got all what I need in time. However, there is no surprising breakthrough happened during my study this year. Therefore, in summary, my project going smoothly as plan this year.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In the future, I plan to collect more data of mPFC neural activity during the formation of inferred fear memory. Although currently I have already collected the data of lots of neurons, it is still not enough to draw stable conclusion for many details, especially for the mPFC projecting neurons and amygdala neurons. More animal surgery will be done and more data will be collected based on current protocols. After the preparation of data, I plan to do more analysis including decoding analysis, cross-day analysis, dimension reduction and so on. Moreover, I plan to do optogenetics at the same time detecting the effect on amygdala neurons during the recall of inferred fear. I will make presentation in multiple conference to let the field know about my progress.
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| Causes of Carryover |
My calculation for required experimental materials is a little bit too conservative this year. In next year, I will use the money to buy animals (rats) for experiments.
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