Lee, Joon-Hyuk Latchoumane, Charles-Francois, V Park, Jungjoon Kim, Jinhyun Jeong, Jaeseung Lee, Kwang-Hyung Shin, Hee-Sup 2024-01-19T19:03:11Z 2024-01-19T19:03:11Z 2021-09-05 2019-10 2041-1723 https://pubs.kist.re.kr/handle/201004/119501 The thalamus has been implicated in fear extinction, yet the role of the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) in this process remains unclear. Here, in mice, we show that the rostroventral part of the TRN (TRNrv) is critically involved in the extinction of tone-dependent fear memory. Optogenetic excitation of TRNrv neurons during extinction learning dramatically facilitated, whereas the inhibition disrupted, the fear extinction. Single unit recordings demonstrated that TRNrv neurons selectively respond to conditioned stimuli but not to neutral stimuli. TRNrv neurons suppressed the spiking activity of the medial part of the dorsal midline thalamus (dMTm), and a blockade of this inhibitory pathway disrupted fear extinction. Finally, we found that the suppression of dMTm projections to the central amygdala promotes fear extinction, and TRNrv neurons have direct connections to this pathway. Our results uncover a previously unknown function of the TRN and delineate the neural circuit for thalamic control of fear memory. English Nature Publishing Group The rostroventral part of the thalamic reticular nucleus modulates fear extinction Article 10.1038/s41467-019-12496-9 1 Nature Communications, v.10 Nature Communications 10 Y scie scopus 000489705200018 2-s2.0-85073164525 Multidisciplinary Sciences Science & Technology - Other Topics Article INFRALIMBIC CORTEX PRELIMBIC CORTEX CIRCUIT HIPPOCAMPAL PROJECTIONS ATTENTION RAT INHIBITION RETRIEVAL SELECTION