To break the CS-US contingency, Pavlov developed an experimental procedure in which the CS was presented alone (without the US) for several trials after the completion of conditioning (Pavlov, 1927). Not surprisingly, the earliest CS-alone trials produced a robust CR, but the CR gradually faded with subsequent CS presentations. Pavlov termed this phenomenon “extinction,” and it is now apparent that this form of learning is an important component of behavioral interventions for patients with pathological fear memories. For example, exposure therapy involves

the use of mental imagery and exposure to trauma-relevant cues in a safe environment to suppress the fear associated with the memory of the traumatic event (Craske et al., 2008, Powers et al., 2010 and Rothbaum OSI-744 and Davis, 2003). Given the importance of extinction learning as a mechanism for suppressing fear memory, there has been an explosion of work into the neural mechanisms of extinction (Bouton et al., 2006a, Herry et al., 2010, Myers and Davis, 2002, Pape and Pare, 2010 and Quirk and Mueller, 2008). Not surprisingly, much of this work has focused on the contribution of the amygdala to fear Selleckchem Autophagy inhibitor extinction and several reports indicate that the BLA is critical for the acquisition of

extinction memories. For example, infusing NMDA receptor antagonists into the BLA disrupts the acquisition of extinction (Falls et al., 1992,

Laurent et al., 2008 and Zimmerman and Maren, 2010), whereas blockade of NMDA receptors in the CEA does not affect extinction learning (Zimmerman and Maren, 2010). Intracellular signaling pathways downstream of BLA NMDA receptors are also critical for extinction learning (Herry et al., 2006, Lin et al., 2003a, Lin et al., 2003b, Lu et al., 2001 and Yang and Lu, 2005). In addition to the glutamatergic system, recent work indicates that other neurotransmitter systems contribute to extinction learning. For example, mice lacking endocannabinoid receptors (CB1 receptors, specifically) exhibit impairments in extinction learning and systemic administration of a CB1 antagonist (SR141716, rimonabant) Sitaxentan inhibits extinction learning (Chhatwal et al., 2009 and Marsicano et al., 2002). Endocannabinoids modulate inhibitory GABAergic synaptic transmission in the amygdala, which is also essential for extinction learning (Chhatwal et al., 2005b, Harris and Westbrook, 1998, Laurent et al., 2008, Laurent and Westbrook, 2008 and Makkar et al., 2010). Collectively, these data suggest that changes in synaptic transmission within the BLA contribute to the suppression of conditional fear after extinction training. Indeed, depotentiation of amygdaloid synaptic transmission has been reported to occur after extinction training (Kim et al., 2007).