Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: María Candela Sosa | Email: maria.candela.sosa@mi.unc.edu.ar
María Cnadela Sosa 1°, Ramiro Comas Mutis 1°, Melisa Riva Gargiulo 1°, Crhistian Bender 1°, Gastón Calfa 1°
1° Departamento de farmacología Otto Orsingher-Instituto de Farmacología Experimental (CONICET)
The occurrence of the destabilization/reconsolidation process of a fear memory plays
a pivotal role in the appearance of some symptoms of PTSD and other anxiety
disorders.
It is known that the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) is a key area
modulating such clinical manifestations. Interestingly, a hiperexcitability of this area
was observed concomitantly with the stress exposure and with changes in the
dynamisms of hippocampal structural plasticity.
In this work we seek to observe and reverse the impairment of the structural
plasticity of dorsal hippocampus due to a pharmacological hyperexcited state in the
BLA that emulates the behavioral and structural manifestations of the stress prior to
conditioning fear memory. Subsequently, intraperitoneal d-cycloserine (partial NMDA
receptor agonist) was used prior to memory recall to reverse the behavioral and
synaptic impairment.