D-056 | Exploring neuronal activity in the Lateral Habenula during aversive learning through Fear Conditioning

Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Maria Paula Ospital | Email: ospitalpaula@gmail.com

María Paula Ospital^1°2°, Joaquín Piriz^2°

^1° Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular (DFBMC) – Universidad de Buenos Aires
^2° Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias (IFIBYNE) – UBA-CONICET

Fear is an adaptive defense emotion in response to potential danger, but its exacerbated expression underlies pathological conditions such as phobias, post-traumatic stress or anxiety. Pavlovian fear conditioning (FC) is undoubtedly the most studied paradigm of fear learning in rodents and involves the association of a tone (cue) and an electric shock (US). The Lateral Habenula (LHb) is a small brain nucleus located dorsal to the thalamus and is associated with encoding aversion. Recently, the group has discovered that during learning the LHb would be involved in contextual as well as cue conditioning. However, the mechanisms by which it does so remain unknown. In this study we combined viral vectors injections and neuronal activity recordings through fiber photometry to observe the LHb’s response throughout FC protocol.