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Updated: Jul 2, 2025
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Trace Fear Conditioning in Mice
Published on: March 20, 2014
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The hippocampus contributes to retroactive stimulus associations during trace fear conditioning
Kyle Puhger1,2, Ana P Crestani2, Cassiano R A F Diniz2
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, 135 Young Hall, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Iscience
|February 20, 2024
Summary
The hippocampus plays a retroactive role in trace fear conditioning, with post-shock activity linking tone and footshock memories. This highlights a new function for hippocampal activity in forming temporal associations during learning.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Behavioral Neuroscience
Background:
- Memory formation relies on binding events occurring at different times.
- Trace fear conditioning involves associating a tone and footshock with a temporal gap.
- The hippocampus's role in maintaining tone representations during this gap is unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the retrospective role of the hippocampus in trace fear conditioning.
- To explore hippocampal activity patterns following footshock in trace fear conditioning.
- To determine the necessity of post-shock hippocampal activity for memory formation.
Main Methods:
- Bulk calcium imaging in CA1 region of the hippocampus.
- Optogenetic silencing of CA1 activity.
- Analysis of sharp-wave ripples during conditioning.
Main Results:
- Sustained increases in CA1 activity were observed after footshock, not tone termination.
- Optogenetic silencing of CA1 post-footshock impaired subsequent memory.
- Footshock increased the number of sharp-wave ripples during conditioning.
Conclusions:
- Post-shock hippocampal activity, potentially through sharp-wave ripples, supports trace fear conditioning by linking tone and shock representations.
- The hippocampus enables retroactive temporal associations during new learning.
- This suggests a function beyond persistent stimulus representation maintenance.
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