Prelimbic cortical stimulation disrupts fear memory consolidation through ventral hippocampal dopamine D ₂ receptors

Background and Purpose Anxiety disorders pose one of the biggest threats to mental health worldwide, yet current therapeutics have been mostly ineffective due issues with relapse, efficacy toxicity medications. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising therapy for treatment-resistant psychiatric including anxiety, but very little known about effects deep on fear memories. Experimental Approach In this study, we employed standard tone-footshock conditioning paradigm modified plus maze discriminative avoidance task probe prelimbic cortex various stages memory. Key Results We identified memory consolidation stage as critical time point disrupt via stimulation. The observed disruption was partially modulated by inactivation ventral hippocampus transient changes in dopamine (D2) receptors expression upon also wide-scale neurotransmitters their metabolites hippocampus, confirming its important role response Conclusion Implications These findings highlight molecular mechanism may translational value, indicating that targeting non-invasive neuromodulation techniques be feasible therapeutic strategy against anxiety disorders.