Teacher Resource for:

Induction of Fear Extinction with Hippocampal-Infralimbic BDNF

Table of Contents:

I. GENERAL USE OF Science in the Classroom

a. Student Learning Goals (general)

b. Using this Resource

i. Learning Lens

ii. Learning Notes

iii. References

iv. Thought Questions

c. Suggestions for Classroom Use

II. ARTICLE-SPECIFIC MATERIALS

a. Connect to Learning Standards

b. Summary of the Article for the Teacher

c. Discussion Questions

GENERAL USE OF Science in the Classroom

Student Learning Goals:

“One fundamental goal for K-12 science education is a scientifically literate person who can understand the nature of scientific knowledge.”1

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences defines science as: “Any new finding requires independent testing before it is accepted as scientific knowledge; a scientist is therefore required to honestly and openly report results so that they can readily be repeated, challenged, and built upon by other scientists. Proceeding in this way over centuries, the community effort that we call science has developed an increasingly accurate understanding of how the world works. To do so, it has had to reject all dogmatic claims based on authority, insisting instead that there be reproducible evidence for any scientific claim.”

An important student learning goal, central to any understanding of “the nature of scientific knowledge,” is to give each student an appreciation of how science is done.

This includes knowing why:

Scientists must be independent thinkers, who are free to dissent from what the majority believes.

Science can deal only with issues for which testable evidence can be obtained.

All scientific understandings are built on previous work

It is to be expected that one scientist’s conclusions will sometimes contradict the conclusions of other scientists.

Science is a never-ending venture, as the results from one study always lead to more questions to investigate.

1 A Framework for K-12 Science Education, National Research Council, 2012

Using This Resource

Learning Lens:

The Learning Lens tool can be found on the right sidebar of each resource and is the source of annotations. Click on the headings to highlight portions of the text of the corresponding research article. A subsequent click on the highlighted text will produce a text box containing more information about that particular piece of text. Below is an example of the Glossary function of the Learning Lens.

An example of the resource with the Glossary, Previous Work, Author’s Experiments, News and Policy Links, and References and Notes tools turned on. The Glossary tool is in use.

Learning Notes:

Learning Notes accompany each figure and are designed to help students deconstruct the methods and data analysis contained within each figure.

References:

The Reference section of each resource is annotated with a short statement about how or why each reference relates to the current research study.

Thought Questions

Thought Questions are located above the Learning Lens in the right sidebar of each resource.

These questions were written to be universal and applicable to any primary research paper.

Thought questions do not have a single answer, or a correct answer for that matter, and can be

used to stimulate discussion among students.

Suggestions for Classroom Use:

In addition to the thought questions discussed above, other resources are provided for use in the classroom. These can be found toward the end of the teacher guides associated with each specific article and include:

1. Discussion questions specific to the article, related to the standards, and/or associated with the figures.

2. Activities tied to the articles.

Some ways to use the Science in the Classroom articles:

1. Assign to student groups to read and discuss during class.

2. Assign small sections of the article to student groups to read and discuss during class, with the expectation that they will present or use jigsaw to teach the entire class what is in their part of the article.

3. Assign to individual students to complete during class or as homework.

4. Assign reading as an extra credit project.

Some ideas for interactive student engagement after reading the article:

1. Students write answers to discussion questions (for example, those linked to the standards or those linked to the diagrams).

2. Go over the abstract, as well as information about the purpose and structure of an abstract, and have students write their own abstracts for the articles in language that could be understood by their peers.

3. Have students edit the article, or parts of the article, to a simpler reading level.

4. Have students, alone or in small groups, use the annotated list of references to explain how the scientists who wrote this article built on the published work of at least one independent group of scientists in making their discoveries. In the process, did they produce data that supports the findings of the earlier publication that they have cited in the text? In what way does this article support the statement that scientific knowledge is built up as a “community effort”?

5. Use the article and discussion questions linked to the standards and the diagrams for a teacher-led classroom discussion. The discussion can focus on the nature of science and scientific research, as well as on the science in the article itself.

6. Have students give a classroom presentation about the article, parts of the article, or their answers to discussion questions.

ARTICLE-SPECIFIC MATERIALS Connections to the nature of science from the article

Understanding memory is one of the primary objectives of neuroscience research.

The acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval of memories is a complex process that

requires communication between various brain regions. The structures and

neurotransmitters involved in this process are still being identified. Fear memory is

commonly studied because it is critical to our survival, conserved across many

species, and relatively accessible for observation because fear responses are

typically accompanied by behavioral and physiological markers that can be

measured; such as freezing behavior or changes in heart rate and blood pressure.

The importance of this scientific research

This study builds on our understanding of fear extinction, which is a type of learning

that is impaired in some psychiatric conditions. This research has direct clinical

implications because of the need for effective therapeutic development to treat

memory-associated disorders such as age-related memory loss, dementia,

schizophrenia, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The actual science involved

Behavioral neuroscience

Neurobiology

Pharmacology

Connect to Learning Standards:

The Next Generation Science Standards

Science and Engineering Practice 1: Asking questions

Science and Engineering Practice 2: Developing and Using Models

A Framework for K-12 Science Education

ETS2.B: Influence of engineering, technology, and science on society and the

natural world.

Common Core English Language Arts

11-12.3: Follow precisely a complex multistep procedure when carrying out

experiments, taking measurements, or performing technical tasks; analyze the

specific results ased on explanations in the text.

11-12.4: Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific

words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context

relevant to grades 11-12 texts and topics.

Summary of the Article for the Teacher: It is recommended that this not be used by students in place of reading the article. General Overview: The ability to learn fear is necessary for our survival. If you poke a hornet’s nest and get stung, you probably will think twice the next time you see a hornet, for fear of being stung again. Without learning to fear harmful aspects of our environment, we would not be able to effectively evade danger. Although it is important to identify and avoid potential dangers, it is also important that we properly react to cues that evoke a fearful response. Fear extinction is one way that our brains are able to manage our response to learned fears. Extinction leads to a reduction in the fear response, and occurs after repeated exposure to a fearful stimulus without any negative consequences. An inability to properly extinguish learned fear is associated with anxiety disorders such as PTSD. Fear learning and extinction can be modeled in rats, using Pavlovian conditioning. An animal learns to associate a sound with a footshock to form a fear memory. That memory can then be extinguished by exposing the animal to the tone multiple times in the absence of the footshock. A neurotransmitter called BDNF is thought to play an important role in fear extinction. The present study asks the question: If BDNF is responsible for extinction memory consolidation in the IL mPC, is it possible to enhance extinction by infusing BDNF in this region? The authors answer this question by delivering BDNF into the IL mPC and measuring its effects on extinction in rats that have been conditioned to fear an auditory cue. Topics Covered:

Neurotransmitter function and targets

Behavioral analysis

Protein quantification Why this research is important: This research was done to improve our understanding of the neurotransmitters and brain regions involved in the extinction of fear memory. Ultimately, this information will lead to the development novel treatments for patients with anxiety disorders.

Methods used in the Research:

Pavlovian fear conditioning

Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay

Intracranial drug infusion

Open field testing

Histology Conclusions:

BDNF strengthens extinction memory.

BDNF reduces fear independent of extinction training.

Infusions of BDNF do not nonspecifically decrease amygdala activity.

Original fear memories remain intact after BDNF treatment.

NMDA receptors are necessary for BDNF-induced fear reductions.

The IL mPFC is the primary site of action for hippocampal BDNF. Areas of Further Study: As our understanding of memory formation improves, it will be important to study the

mechanisms underlying retrieval of fear memories. The study of memory retrieval is

complicated by the dynamic nature of memories, which tend to reorganize over time as

opposed to being permanently stored in a specific part of the brain. Recent studies

suggest that the neural circuits responsible for fear memory retrieval may change over

time. Understanding how memory retrieval is affected by time will be necessary to

develop improved therapies for patients with PTSD because these patients may not be

diagnosed until months or years after the trauma responsible for their condition.

Discussion Questions:

1. How long does the BDNF-extinction last? If the animals were tested a week later, without unsignaled footshocks, would there still be a difference between the groups?

2. The authors note that some animals are naturally bad at extinguishing fear

memories. How might this fact be relevant to humans?

3. Do the rats with lower endogenous hippocampal BDNF levels also show any difference in their ability to learn or remember nonaversive tasks?

4. BDNF appears to play a very important role in the extinction pathway of an

associative fear memory. Does it affect contextual memory in a similar way?