Yiu et al

Yiu et al’s article shows some impressive techniques examining the mechanisms that are useful when determining neuron allocation to a fear memory trace in the lateral amygdala. It was interesting seeing how the manipulation of CREB in their methods could create a bias for the competition between LA neurons. The higher CREB was the more likely that those cells would be chosen over the ones next to them. It was also helpful that Yiu et al. went step by step, first validating that excitability neurons were one important factor for allocation and then confirming that the expression of dnKCNQ2 would also help with increasing excitability. Neuronal excitability was also time specific, because even injecting after training had little effect on the rodents LA neurons. Looking at the anxiety behaviors was something I did not expect them to do even though they did not get any significant results. However, this showed that even injecting CREB or dnKCNQ2, this does not contribute to nonspecific increase in anxiety like behaviors.

One of the methods, I thought was interesting and something we haven’t seen in class before was the use of the DREADD hM3Dq. By manipulating/controlling neuronal excitability, it shows us clear results when we see hM3Dq binding with CNO, almost identical to the methods of optogenetics. Seeing hM3dq injected before weak training proved to us that the timing of the injection is important to memory fear formation. These methods used in the articles could eventually help with memory tuning in patients with PTSD. Overall, Yiu et al. shows us methods that help us understand more about the mechanisms of neuronal allocation so that it can help with memory trace for future clinical studies.