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Science 330 (6007): 1108-1112

Copyright © 2010 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Calcium-Permeable AMPA Receptor Dynamics Mediate Fear Memory Erasure

Roger L. Clem, and Richard L. Huganir*

Abstract: Traumatic fear memories can be inhibited by behavioral therapy for humans, or by extinction training in rodent models, but are prone to recur. Under some conditions, however, these treatments generate a permanent effect on behavior, which suggests that emotional memory erasure has occurred. The neural basis for such disparate outcomes is unknown. We found that a central component of extinction-induced erasure is the synaptic removal of calcium-permeable {alpha}-amino-3-hydroxyl-5-methyl-4-isoxazole-propionate receptors (AMPARs) in the lateral amygdala. A transient up-regulation of this form of plasticity, which involves phosphorylation of the glutamate receptor 1 subunit of the AMPA receptor, defines a temporal window in which fear memory can be degraded by behavioral experience. These results reveal a molecular mechanism for fear erasure and the relative instability of recent memory.

Department of Neuroscience and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: rhuganir{at}jhmi.edu

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