@article{ref1,
title="Persistence of amygdala-hippocampal connectivity and multi-voxel correlation structures during awake rest after fear learning predicts long-term expression of fear",
journal="Cerebral cortex",
year="2016",
author="Hermans, Erno J. and Kanen, Jonathan W. and Tambini, Arielle and Fernández, Guillen and Davachi, Lila and Phelps, Elizabeth A.",
volume="27",
number="5",
pages="3028-3041",
abstract="After encoding, memories undergo a process of consolidation that determines long-term retention. For conditioned fear, animal models postulate that consolidation involves reactivations of neuronal assemblies supporting fear learning during postlearning &quot;offline&quot; periods. However, no human studies to date have investigated such processes, particularly in relation to long-term expression of fear. We tested 24 participants using functional MRI on 2 consecutive days in a fear conditioning paradigm involving 1 habituation block, 2 acquisition blocks, and 2 extinction blocks on day 1, and 2 re-extinction blocks on day 2. Conditioning blocks were preceded and followed by 4.5-min rest blocks. Strength of spontaneous recovery of fear on day 2 served as a measure of long-term expression of fear. Amygdala connectivity primarily with hippocampus increased progressively during postacquisition and postextinction rest on day 1. Intraregional multi-voxel correlation structures within amygdala and hippocampus sampled during a block of differential fear conditioning furthermore persisted after fear learning. Critically, both these main findings were stronger in participants who exhibited spontaneous recovery 24 h later. Our findings indicate that neural circuits activated during fear conditioning exhibit persistent postlearning activity that may be functionally relevant in promoting consolidation of the fear memory.<br><br>© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1047-3211",
doi="10.1093/cercor/bhw145",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhw145"
}