CRC TRR 58 - A04: Fear extinction and the role of the endocannabinoid system

Basic data for this project

Description

The identification of neurons or neuronal networks that evoke specific behaviours, such as fear, is a demanding challenge. Fear behaviour has innate and learned components. An established model to investigate learned fear is auditory fear conditioning, where animals are conditioned to fear a neutral stimulus such as a tone, if this tone is paired with an aversive experience. Auditory fear conditioning can be separated in different phases of learning: acquisition, consolidation and extinction of fear memory. Extinction of acquired memory represents a specific type of learning: inhibitory learning. The endocannabinoid system of the brain is critically involved in the extinction of auditory conditioned fear. The aim of the project is to identify the neuronal networks and brain regions that mediate these fear-alleviating effects of the endocannabinoid system using sophisticated genetic tools, paving the way for the mechanistic understanding of fear extinction and, hopefully, also for proposing novel therapeutic approaches for disorders with impaired extinction processes.