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Final Paper Topic

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I am planning to focus my final paper on examining the effects of manipulating different regions of the engram on anxiety-like behaviors. We covered a few papers earlier in the semester dealing with finding the memory trace, primarily through optogenetic manipulation of hippocampal cells. This research is really important because it has potential clinical implications for anxiety, PTSD, and phobias.

The papers I have selected so far use opto to manipulate different hippocampal and amygdala neurons involved in fear learning, consolidation, retrieval, extinction, and re-learning. I'm interested in comparing how manipulating different phases of the memory trace have different effects on the duration of a fear memory (and anxiety-like response) and the ability for extinction to be reversed and the fearful trace reactivated. I also tried to select articles that studied both male and female animals, however one that I included studies only males. When I actually write my paper, hopefully I can replace that with a different paper that studies both sexes.


Synapse-specific representation of the identity of overlapping memory engrams
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/360/6394/1227.full.pdf

Acute Disruption of the Dorsal Hippocampus Impairs the Encoding and Retrieval of Trace Fear Memories
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00116/full

A time-dependent role for the transcription factor CREB in neuronal allocation to an engram underlying a fear memory revealed using a novel in vivo optogenetic tool to modulate CREB function
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0588-0

Pharmacogenetic reactivation of the original engram evokes an extinguished fear memory
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028390816303963#sec2

Distinct hippocampal engrams control extinction and relapse of fear memory
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0361-z#Sec9

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