Contextualizing a Prefrontal-to-Lateral Entorhinal Cortex Circuit Mediating Fear Expression

Having a drink—okay at the club, not okay at work. Running from loud sounds—okay in a gunfight, not okay at a parade. “This is the bomb!”—okay when eating pizza, not okay on an airplane. SEE CORRESPONDING ARTICLE ON PAGE 239 SEE CORRESPONDING ARTICLE ON PAGE 239 A Ventromedial Prefrontal-to-Lateral Entorhinal Cortex Pathway Modulates the Gain of Behavioral Responding During ThreatBiological PsychiatryVol. 94Issue 3PreviewThe ability to correctly associate cues and contexts with threat is critical for survival, and the inability to do so can result in threat-related disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus are well known to play critical roles in cued and contextual threat memory processing. However, the circuits that mediate prefrontal-hippocampal modulation of context discrimination during cued threat processing are less understood. Here, we demonstrate the role of a previously unexplored projection from the ventromedial region of PFC (vmPFC) to the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) in modulating the gain of behavior in response to contextual information during threat retrieval and encoding. Full-Text PDF