Inhibitory interneurons in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory, help ensure the formation of neutral memories in the face of an unrelated, fearful event, according to a study published last week (February 20) in Science.
“This study solved the puzzle of how the hippocampus can successfully encode the context, while ignoring the impact of the ongoing negative stimulus,” MIT’s Xu Liu, who was not involved with the research, told BBC News. The investigation allowed the team to “peek into the mouse’s brain and zoom into the cells of interest while the animal was learning,” he added.
Coauthor Attila Losonczy of Columbia University in New York and his collaborators suggested that, if they apply to humans, their results may have implications for understanding post-traumatic stress disorder. “If we understand how the circuits in our brain influence memory under normal conditions, we can then try to understand what actually went ...
