Fendt, Markus, Imobersteg, Stefan, Buerki, Hugo, Mcallister, Kevin and Sailer, Andreas (2010) Intra-amygdala injections of neuropeptide S block fear-potentiated startle. Neuroscience Letters, 474 (3). pp. 154-157. ISSN 0304-3940

Abstract

Injections of neuropeptide S (NPS) into the lateral ventricle induce a strong hyperactivity. Since most behavioral paradigms are dependent of spontaneous locomotor activity, this makes it difficult to interpret the role of NPS in such paradigms. The aim of the present experiment was to investigate the effects of NPS in fear-potentiated startle, a behavioral paradigm which is not affected by changes in locomotor activity. Furthermore, NPS was directly injected into the amygdala, the central site of the neural fear circuitry. Our data shows that intra-amygdala NPS injections dose-dependently block the expression of conditioned fear and that this effect is independent of NPS effects on locomotor activity. This strongly supports a crucial role of amygdaloid NPS in conditioned fear.

Item Type:	Article
Related URLs:	http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez...
Additional Information:	Author can archive post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing); Publisher's version/PDF cannot be used
Keywords:	Amygdala; Anxiety; conditioned fear; locomotor activity; mice
Related URLs:	http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez...
Date Deposited:	13 Oct 2015 13:16
Last Modified:	13 Oct 2015 13:16
URI:	https://oak.novartis.com/id/eprint/2011