US-France Cooperative Research: The Anatomy of Fear-Networks in the Lateral Amygdala

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

0340607 LeDoux Fear is an emotional response characterized by both the subjective state (the feeling of fear) and bodily responses elicited by threatening stimuli. The detection of threats and the production of protective bodily responses (behavioral, autonomic, and endocrine changes) are a vital part of biological survival. The brain has circuits that appear pre-wired to respond to some stimuli, such as ancestral threats, and novel stimuli associated with pre-wired dangers. Individuals can use information from past situations to avoid potentially dangerous organisms, objects, and situations. However, the circuits, network properties and computations performed by the brain's fear systems to encode, store and retrieve conditioned fear memories are not yet known. In this three-year cooperative research project, Joseph LeDoux, Luke Johnson of New York University's Center for Neural Science and Valerie Doyere of the Universite Paris-Sud will identify the underlying neural circuitry and networks in lateral amygdala of the brain responsible for fear behaviors. The project combines complementary expertise of the U.S. and French investigators and will advance understanding of how the mammalian brain encodes, stores and retrieves fear memory. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) will jointly support this project. NSF will cover the costs of the U.S. investigator's visits to France. The CNRS will provide funding to the French investigator for travel to the United States.