Generalisation of conditioned fear and its behavioural expression in mice

Mice are favourite subjects in molecular and genetic memory research and frequently studied with classical fear conditioning paradigms that use an auditory cue (conditioned stimulus, CS(+)) to predict an aversive, unconditioned stimulus (US). Yet the conditions that control fear memory specificity and generalisation and their behavioural expression in such conditioned mice have not been analysed systematically. In the current study we addressed these issues in the most widely used mouse strain of behavioural genetics, C57Bl/6. In keeping with findings in other species we demonstrate the dependence of fear memory generalisation on training intensity (i.e. both US intensity and the number of CS(+) and US applied) after both excitatory (explicitly paired presentation of CS(+) and US) and inhibitory training (explicitly unpaired presentation of CS(+) and US). Furthermore, inhibitory overtraining was associated with changes of uncued anxiety-like behaviour in a light/dark exploration test, indicative of an emotional sensitisation reaction as consequence of a lack of US predictability. Together our results describe the qualitatively and quantitatively different increases of defensive behaviour in response to conditioned stimuli of different salience and identify training conditions that lead to fear memory generalisation and emotional sensitisation in C57Bl/6 inbred mice.