Role of hippocampal BDNF signaling in contextual fear learning, fear generalization and context discrimination (A10)

• Subject Area: Biological Psychiatry
• Term: from 2013 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 44541416

Behavioral analyses of a newly generated mouse model with selective depletion of BDNF from hippocampal granule cells showed altered processing of learned fear and increased hippocampal activity that correlated with delayed extinction. This and other BDNF deficient mouse models will be studied to characterize altered signal transduction, synaptic plasticity in local GABAergic interneurons in the MF-CA3 region, and to correlate changes in activity with behavioral alterations in context of discrimination and fear generalization.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 58: Fear, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders
• Applicant Institution: Universität Münster
• Co-Applicant Institution: Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Robert Blum; Professor Dr. Michael A. Sendtner