Adolescence is a time of intensified emotional experiences, during which anxiety and stress-related disorders peak. The most effective behavioral therapies for treating these disorders share exposure-based techniques as a core component. Exposure-based therapies build on the principles of fear extinction learning and involve desensitizing the individual to cues that trigger anxiety. Yet, recent...

Recent advances in the field of fear learning have demonstrated that a single reminder exposure prior to extinction training can prevent the return of extinguished fear by disrupting the process of reconsolidation. These findings have however proven hard to replicate in humans. Given the significant implications of preventing the return of fear, the purpose of the present study was to further s...

Accumulating evidence suggests a critical role for epigenetic regulations in long term memory (LTM) formation. Among them, post-translational modifications of proteins, as histone acetylation, are an important regulator of chromatin remodelling and gene transcription. While the implication of histone acetylation in memory consolidation is widely accepted, less is known about its role in memory ...

Memory reconsolidation is defined as a process in which the retrieval of a previously consolidated memory returns to a labile state which is then subject to stabilization. The reminder is the event that begins with the presentation of the learned cue and triggers the labilization-reconsolidation process. Since the early formulation of the hypothesis, several controversial items have arisen conc...

Rats can learn to forage among olfactory cues to associate one with reward in only 3 massed trials. The learning is achieved in less than 10 min and results in a memory trace lasting at least 1wk week. To study the neuro-anatomical circuits involved in the memory formation we used immunoreactivity to the immediate early gene c-fos as a marker for neuronal activity induced by the learning. The p...

The recent discovery by brain scientists of the reconsolidation of memory circuits (see research bibliography below) overturned the almost century-old tenet that emotional learnings and acquired responses maintained in long-term implicit memory are indelible—unerasable and permanent for the lifetime of the individual. Reconsolidation, induced endogenously through behavioral procedures, has been...

Little is known about the ontogenesis of memory, whether it appears with its full characteristics or whether they emerge progressively with development. In the adult, basic characteristics of memory processing are consolidation of memory after acquisition and reconsolidation after retrieval. Here, using a conditioned aversion paradigm and postlearning or postreactivation injection of a protein ...

Conditioned cue-induced relapse to drug seeking is a major challenge to the treatment of drug addiction. It has been proposed that D-cycloserine might be useful in the prevention of relapse by reducing the conditioned reinforcing properties of drug-associated stimuli through facilitation of extinction. Here we show that intrabasolateral amygdala infusions of D-cycloserine in fact potentiate the...