Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 15, 2026
Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
Ecologically relevant neurobehavioral assessment of the development of threat learning
Julie Boulanger Bertolus1, Anne-Marie Mouly1, Regina M Sullivan2
1Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, INSERM U1028; CNRS UMR5292; University Lyon1, Lyon, France.
Insights
Young rats learn fear differently than adults. While adult rats develop fear through amygdala pathways, pups initially show approach behavior mediated by an attachment network, which can be socially modulated by maternal fear cues.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Animal Behavior
Background:
- Infants transition from protected environments to complex, dangerous ones, necessitating developmental changes in learning and responses.
- Fear conditioning paradigms reveal distinct learning mechanisms in infant and adult rats, highlighting developmental shifts in neural circuitry.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review learned fear conditioned responses to threats in rats during their ontogeny.
- To examine behavioral and physiological measures of learning and neurobiology from infancy through adulthood.
Main Methods:
- Odor-shock conditioning in adult rats to assess amygdala-dependent fear learning.
- Odor-shock conditioning in infant rats to evaluate approach learning mediated by the attachment network.
- Investigating the transition period (10-15 days old) and the influence of maternal fear expression on fear learning.
Main Results:
- Adult rats exhibit robust amygdala-dependent fear learning to odors paired with shock.
- Young pups display approach learning to shock-paired odors, mediated by an amygdala-independent attachment network.
- Maternal fear expression can override infant attachment learning and promote amygdala-dependent fear learning, even in young pups.
Conclusions:
- Fear learning circuitry undergoes significant developmental changes from infancy to adulthood in rats.
- The infant attachment network supports approach learning, while the adult amygdala circuit supports fear learning.
- Social modulation, specifically maternal fear expression, plays a crucial role in shaping fear learning during development, allowing for adaptive defensive responses without learning the caregiver as a threat.
Abstract:
As altricial infants gradually transition to adults, their proximate environment changes. In three short weeks, pups transition from a small world with the caregiver and siblings to a complex milieu rich in dangers as their environment expands. Such contrasting environments require different learning abilities and lead to distinct responses throughout development. Here, we will review some of the learned fear conditioned responses to threats in rats during their ontogeny, including behavioral and physiological measures that permit the assessment of learning and its supporting neurobiology from infancy through adulthood. In adulthood, odor-shock conditioning produces robust fear learning to the odor that depends upon the amygdala and related circuitry. Paradoxically, this conditioning in young pups fails to support fear learning and supports approach learning to the odor previously paired with shock. This approach learning is mediated by the infant attachment network that does not include the amygdala. During the age range when pups transition from the infant to the adult circuit (10-15 d old), pups have access to both networks: odor-shock conditioning in maternal presence uses the attachment circuit but the adult amygdala-dependent circuit when alone. However, throughout development (as young as 5 d old) the attachment associated learning can be overridden and amygdala-dependent fear learning supported, if the mother expresses fear in the presence of the pup. This social modulation of the fear permits the expression of defense reactions in life threatening situations informed by the caregiver but prevents the learning of the caregiver itself as a threat.
