Updating memories is critical for adaptive behaviors, but the rules and mechanisms governing that process are still not well defined. During a limited time window, the reactivation of consolidated aversive memories triggers memory lability and induces a plasticity-dependent reconsolidation process in the lateral nucleus of amygdala (LA) [1-5]. However, whether new information is necessary for i...

Memory reconsolidation — the process by which memories can become destabilised at retrieval, and be updated or modified — offers a potential therapeutic opportunity for mental health disorders based upon maladaptive emotional memories, such as drug addiction. Blocking the reconsolidation of pavlovian cue-drug memories persistently reduces subsequent relapse in rodent models and in human experim...

The alpha-1 adrenergic antagonist prazosin has been used to alleviate the symptoms of PTSD, but the mechanism remains unclear. One possibility is that prazosin may disrupt fear memory reconsolidation, leading to attenuation of fear responses. To test this hypothesis, we administered a single systemic injection of prazosin during the reconsolidation of olfactory fear conditioning in rats. We fou...

Memories become labile when recalled. In humans and rodents alike, reactivated fear memories can be attenuated by disrupting reconsolidation with extinction training. Using functional brain imaging, we found that, after a conditioned fear memory was formed, reactivation and reconsolidation left a memory trace in the basolateral amygdala that predicted subsequent fear expression and was tightly ...

In reconsolidation studies, memories are typically retrieved by an exposure to a single conditioned stimulus (CS). We have previously demonstrated that reconsolidation processes are CS-selective, suggesting that memories retrieved by the CS exposure are discrete and reconsolidate separately. Here, using a compound stimulus in which two distinct CSs are concomitantly paired with the same aversiv...

NMDA receptors are important for the acquisition, reconsolidation, and extinction of memories. NMDA receptor antagonists impair these memory processes, whereas the partial agonist D-cycloserine (DCS) potentiates both learning and extinction. Here, we used DCS and the noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist (+)-5-methyl-10,11-dihydro-SH-dibenzo[a,d]cyclohepten-5,10-imine maleate (MK-801) to inve...

Long-term fear memory in the medaka fish (Oryzias latipes) regains transient sensitivity to a consolidation blocker immediately after memory reactivation in retrieval ('reconsolidation'). Here we show that reconsolidation occurs in fresh long-term memories but not in remote memories, and that the apparent amnesia induced by blockade of reconsolidation can be reinstated by an unpaired reinforcer...

Fear memories can be attenuated by reactivation followed by disrupted reconsolidation. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging we recently showed that reactivation and reconsolidation of a conditioned fear memory trace in the basolateral amygdala predicts subsequent fear expression over two days, while reactivation followed by disrupted reconsolidation abolishes the memory trace and suppres...

Reconsolidation is necessary for the restabilization of reactivated memory traces. However, experimental parameters have been suggested as boundary conditions for this process. Here we investigated the role of a spatial memory trace's age, strength, and update on the reconsolidation process in mice. We first found that protein synthesis is necessary for reconsolidation to occur in the hippocamp...

We previously demonstrated that disrupting reconsolidation by pharmacological manipulations "deleted" the emotional expression of a fear memory in humans. If we are to target reconsolidation in patients with anxiety disorders, the disruption of reconsolidation should produce content-limited modifications. At the same time, the fear-erasing effects should not be restricted to the feared cue itse...