Selection for contextual fear conditioning affects anxiety-like behaviors and gene expression (palme-affy-mouse-84746)

These data are from the brains (amygdala and hippocampus) of mice originally derived from a cross between C57BL/6J and DBA/2J inbred strains. We used short-term selection to produce outbred mouse lines with differences in contextual fear conditioning, which is a measure of fear learning. We selected for a total of 4 generations. Fear learning differed in the selected lines and this difference was stronger with each successive generation of selection. These mice also showed differences for measures of anxiety-like behavior, but were not different for tests of non-fear motivated learning, suggesting that selection altered alleles that are specifically involved in emotional behaviors. We identified several QTLs for the selection response. We used Affymetrix microarrays to identify differentially expressed genes in the amygdala and hippocampus of mice from the final generation of selection. Amygdala and hippocampus samples were rapidly dissected out of experimentally nave mice f rom each selected line. Three samples were pooled and hybridized to each array. Experimentally nave mice were used because the behavior of the mice can be reliably anticipated due to their lineage. Thus, these gene expression differences are not due to the response to human handling, foot shock or fear-inducing conditioned stimuli. We have a second similar study that focuses on a different selected population that was based on C57BL/6J and A/J mice (see GES4034).

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Ponder CA, Kliethermes CL, Drew MR, Muller J, Das K, Risbrough VB, Crabbe JC, Gilliam TC, Palmer AA