The current study aimed to determine the selective advantage of lateral amygdala (LA) neurons overexpressing the transcription factor CREB that enables their preferential incorporation into the fear memory trace. I hypothesized that overexpression of CREB drives the formation of dendritic spines, potentially providing these neurons with greater connectivity to sensory inputs at the time of learning. Using viral-mediated gene transfer, CREB tagged with GFP, or GFP as a control, was overexpressed in the LA of wild-type mice. Spine number and morphology were compared in homecage mice at the time when mice are normally trained in fear conditioning. Spine density was increased in neurons with CREB vector compared to neurons with GFP vector whereas spine head diameter and length was not different. Therefore, LA neurons overexpressing CREB have increased spine number at the time of learning, potentially providing these neurons with a selective advantage for incorporation into the fear memory trace.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/42888 |
| Date | 27 November 2013 |
| Creators | Higgs, Gemma Victoria |
| Contributors | Josselyn, Sheena |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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