Washington: Scientists claim to have found a previously unrecognised layer of gene regulation associated with fear extinction, a finding which may have implications in conditions such as phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder.
An international team, led by University of Queensland, says that this is an inhibitory learning process thought to be critical for controlling fear-related behaviour when the fear response is no longer required.
Lead researcher Dr Timothy Bredy said the findings shed new light on the processes involved in loosening the grip of fear-related memories.
The research, published in the 'Nature Neuroscience' journal, explores how fear-related memories are formed, updated and extinguished at the molecular level. It also provides fresh understanding of the actual function of genes expressed at the time of retrieval of fear memories, and how they are regulated to facilitate fear extinction, say the scientists.
"This is the first demonstration of how small non-coding RNAs contribute to the formation of fear extinction memory, and highlights the adaptive significance of activity dependent microRNA expression in the adult brain," Dr Bredy said.
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