DOES THE CENTRAL NUCLEUS OF THE AMYGDALA CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONSOLIDATION OF AUDITORY FEAR CONDITIONING?
The lateral nucleus (LA) has been implicated in the learning and consolidation of auditory fear conditioning. Functional inactivation of LA with the GABAA agonist muscimol during acquisition interferes with fear conditioning, while inactivation immediately after conditioning does not have an effect (Wilensky et al., J. Neurosci., 2000). Further, bilateral infusion of the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin into LA prevents the consolidation of long-term memory (LTM) without affecting short-term memory (STM) (Schafe et al., J. Neurosci., 2000). In contrast to the LA, the central nucleus (CE) is generally believed to be mainly involved in the expression of conditioned fear responses during the retrieval of the memory. However, recent work has shown that functional inactivation during acquisition of either LA or CE with muscimol interferes with fear conditioning (Wilensky et al., Soc. Neurosci. Abst., 2000). Preliminary evidence also suggests that bilateral infusion of anisomycin in CE
