Citation

Flavell CR, Lambert EA, Winters BD, Bredy TW. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 2013; 7: 214.

Affiliation

Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland Brisbane, QLD, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00214

PMID

24421762

Abstract

The extinction of learned associations has traditionally been considered to involve new learning, which competes with the original memory for control over behavior. However, a recent resurgence of interest in reactivation-dependent amnesia has revealed that the retrieval of fear-related memory (with what is essentially a brief extinction session) can result in its destabilization. This review discusses some of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that are involved in the destabilization of a memory following its reactivation and/or extinction, and investigates the evidence that extinction may involve both new learning as well as a partial destabilization-induced erasure of the original memory trace.

Language: en