Fear memories can be attenuated by reactivation followed by disrupted reconsolidation. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging we recently showed that reactivation and reconsolidation of a conditioned fear memory trace in the basolateral amygdala predicts subsequent fear expression over two days, while reactivation followed by disrupted reconsolidation abolishes the memory trace and suppresses fear. In this follow-up study we demonstrate that the behavioral effect persists over 18 months reflected in superior reacquisition after undisrupted, as compared to disrupted reconsolidation, and that neural activity in the basolateral amygdala representing the initial fear memory predicts return of fear. We conclude that disrupting reconsolidation have long lasting behavioral effects and may permanently erase an amygdala-dependent fear memory.
Data from: Disruption of memory reconsolidation erases a fear memory trace in the human amygdala: An 18-month follow-up
This is data is from a fear conditioning experiment measuring skin conductance and fMRI BOLD, pertaining to the article: Björkstrand J, Agren T, Frick A, Engman J, Larsson EM, Furmark T, Fredrikson M. Disruption of memory reconsolidation erases a fear memory trace in the human amygdala: An 18-month follow-up, yet to be published. Please consult this article and the original study: “Agren T, Engman J, Frick A, Björkstrand J, Larsson EM, Furmark T, Fredrikson M. 2012. Disruption of reconsolidation erases a fear memory trace in the human amygdala. Science 337:1550-1552” , for details concerning the purpose and design of the study. In the folder SCRdataAndGroup you can find an excel file containing raw and range corrected skin conductance responses (SCR) for all subjects from the follow-up measurement 18 months after fear acqusition, as well as information as to which subject belongs to which group. In the folders named subject1-19 you can find SPM8 contrast files from the renewal session three days after acquisition. The contrast shows the BOLD response to the first CSplus trial over an immediate preceding baseline for each subject. These files can be used to perform second level analysis using SPM8 for Matlab.
In the folder MaskForColocalizationAnalysis you can find the SPM8 image file used to perform the colocalization analysis described in the follow-up study.
Data.zip