Fear conditioning is an associative learning paradigm for assessment of aversive learning and memory.
The Pavlovian Fear Conditioning task allows for the assessment of learning and memory for aversive events. The task is able to assess associative memory for unimodal cues (e.g., light or tone) and unconditioned stimulus (i.e., foot shock), as well as complex, multimodal stimuli such as context. Fear conditioning universally depends on the integrity of the amygdala, but context conditioning is sensitive to manipulations of the hippocampus. This task measures the rodent’s natural freezing behavior (lack of motion) as an indicator of fear. This task has been used extensively to demonstrate both genetically based impairments and enhancements in learning and memory.
There is a multitude of variations with this procedure, including number and intensity of shocks, time between cue and shock presentations, number of days of testing, etc. Please contact us to discus the best variation for your study. This experimental procedure can be performed on up to 4 mice and rats at the same time.
Procedure
On day one of testing, mice are placed in the chamber with no stimuli to measure baseline freezing. Mice are then exposed to a stimulus, such as a tone or light, followed by a mild foot shock. On day two of testing, mice are either placed back in the same context without any stimulus and freezing is measured (contextual conditioning test) or placed in a new environment and exposed to the stimulus received on day 1 and freezing is measured (cued conditioning test).
Measures
Primary measure: duration of freezing (percent freezing)
Available Equipment
MedAssociates fear conditioning system: https://med-associates.com/product/nir-video-fear-conditioning-vfc-system-for-general-use/
