Extinction (optical mineralogy)

Fear conditioning

Neuroscience

Biology

Sensory system

Fear processing in the brain

Inhibitory postsynaptic potential

Paleontology

Psychology

Stimulation

Basolateral amygdala

Superior colliculus

Amygdala

Thalamus

Freezing behavior

Optogenetics

Nature

A psychotherapeutic regimen that uses alternating bilateral sensory stimulation (ABS) has been used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. However, the neural basis that underlies the long-lasting effect of this treatment—described as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing—has not been identified. Here we describe a neuronal pathway driven by the superior colliculus (SC) that mediates persistent attenuation of fear. We successfully induced a lasting reduction in fear in mice by pairing visual ABS with conditioned stimuli during fear extinction. Among the types of visual stimulation tested, ABS provided the strongest fear-reducing effect and yielded sustained increases in the activities of the SC and mediodorsal thalamus (MD). Optogenetic manipulation revealed that the SC–MD circuit was necessary and sufficient to prevent the return of fear. ABS suppressed the activity of fear-encoding cells and stabilized inhibitory neurotransmission in the basolateral amygdala through a feedforward inhibitory circuit from the MD. Together, these results reveal the neural circuit that underlies an effective strategy for sustainably attenuating traumatic memories. Bilateral sensory stimulation, which is used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in humans, alleviates fear memory in mice through a circuit involving the superior colliculus and the medial thalamus.

Neural circuits underlying a psychotherapeutic regimen for fear disorders