Using a new technique called optogenetics, the researchers could both control and track the path of electrical impulses in the rats' amygdalas. In the study, the researchers worked with rats that were conditioned to associate an auditory tone with a mild electrical shock to their feet.
The new study represents the first time the process was seen in a working brain with real memories.
Previously, the researchers, led by Joseph LeDoux, director of NYU's Emotional Brain Institute, found evidence for Hebbian plasticity using brain cells that had been removed from animals. "These processes for triggering aversive memory storage may represent a general mechanism controlling memory formation that is shared across other learning systems in the brain," said Joshua Johansen of RIKEN, one of the lead authors on the study.
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