Prefrontal cortex neuronal ensembles encoding fear drive fear expression during long-term memory retrieval

The prefrontal cortex is an important regulator of fear expression in humans and rodents. Specifically, the rodent prelimbic (PL) prefrontal cortex drives fear expression during both encoding and retrieval of fear memory. Neuronal ensembles have been proposed to function as memory encoding units, and their re-activation is thought to be necessary for memory retrieval and expression of conditioned behavior. However, it remains unclear whether PL cortex neuronal ensembles that encode fear memory contribute to long-term fear expression during memory retrieval. To address this, we employed a viral-mediated TRAP (Targeted Recombination in Active Population) technology to target PL cortex ensembles active during fear conditioning and expressed the inhibitory Gi-DREADD in fear-encoding ensembles. Male and female rats were trained to lever press for food and subjected to Pavlovian delay fear conditioning, then 28 days later, they underwent a fear memory retrieval test. Chemogenetic inhibition of TRAPed PL cortex ensembles reduced conditioned suppression of food seeking in females, but not males. Neither context nor tone freezing behavior was altered by this manipulation during the same retrieval test. Thus, fear-encoding ensembles in PL cortex drive long-term fear expression in a sex and fear modality dependent manner.