Fear Conditioning in Laboratory Rodents

An animal’s ability to avoid threat by learning about cues and places that predict the occurrence of a threat is pivotal for survival. This learning is a form of Pavlovian conditioning, called fear conditioning, and is seen across the animal kingdom. Importantly, it can be modelled in the laboratory setting by presenting the animal with a certain context or a discrete cue (e.g., tone or light stimulus) that are then paired with a threat (e.g., an electric stimulus). The learning is then assessed by measuring the acquired fear response to the respective context and/or cue. Variations of the parameters and the protocol allow the investigation of a multitude of physiological and pathological learning phenomena. In this chapter, we give a methodological overview of a standard fear conditioning setup, different protocols, behavioral read outs, and data analysis.