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Fear memory engram is the mind-killer

Nature Neuroscience volume 26, pages 729–731 (2023)Cite this article

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Stegemann et al. have unraveled a long-lasting role for fear engrams in future pain perception. Prefrontal pain and fear representations become entangled following a fearful event. As subsequent painful experiences also reactivate the fear network, silencing the fear engram alone can alleviate both tonic pain and hypersensitivity in chronic pain.

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Fig. 1: Silencing the PFC fear memory engram suppresses pathological hypersensitivity in a chronic pain model.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Gillon for helpful comments. This work was supported by grants to G.V. from ANR (ANR-20-CE16-0015-01), Emergence(s) Ville de Paris (2019 DAE 81), a NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (no. 29489).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cerebral Codes and Circuits Connectivity team, Brain Plasticity Unit, CNRS, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, Paris, France

    Clément Pouget & Gisella Vetere

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  1. Clément Pouget
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  2. Gisella Vetere
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Correspondence to Gisella Vetere.

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Pouget, C., Vetere, G. Fear memory engram is the mind-killer. Nat Neurosci 26, 729–731 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01292-w

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