Cognitive psychology

Neuroscience

Prefrontal cortex

Biology

Fear conditioning

Cognition

Extinction (optical mineralogy)

Brain stimulation

Stimulation

Biological neural network

Paleontology

Memory consolidation

Psychology

Hippocampus

Optogenetics

Fear processing in the brain

Amygdala

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

The acquisition of fear associative memory requires brain processes of coordinated neural activity within the amygdala, prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, thalamus and brainstem. After fear consolidation, a suppression of fear memory in the absence of danger is crucial to permit adaptive coping behavior. Acquisition and maintenance of fear extinction critically depend on amygdala-PFC projections. The robust correspondence between the brain networks encompassed cortical and subcortical hubs involved into fear processing in humans and in other species underscores the potential utility of comparing the modulation of brain circuitry in humans and animals, as a crucial step to inform the comprehension of fear mechanisms and the development of treatments for fear-related disorders. The present review is aimed at providing a comprehensive description of the literature on recent clinical and experimental researches regarding the noninvasive brain stimulation and optogenetics. These innovative manipulations applied over specific hubs of fear matrix during fear acquisition, consolidation, reconsolidation and extinction allow an accurate characterization of specific brain circuits and their peculiar interaction within the specific fear processing.

Memories are not written in stone: Re-writing fear memories by means of non-invasive brain stimulation and optogenetic manipulations