An amygdala-cortical circuit for encoding generalized fear memories

Generalized learning is a fundamental process observed across species, contexts, and sensory modalities that enables animals to use past experiences to adapt to changing conditions. Evidence suggests that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) extracts general features of an experience that can be used across multiple situations. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region of the PFC, is implicated in generalized fear responses to novel contexts. However, the ACC’s role in encoding contextual information is poorly understood, especially under increased threat intensity that promotes generalization. Here, we show that synaptic plasticity within the ACC and signaling from amygdala inputs during fear learning are necessary for generalized fear responses to novel encountered contexts. The ACC did not encode specific fear to the training context, suggesting this region extracts general features of a threatening experience rather than specific contextual information. Together with our previous work, our results demonstrate that generalized learning about threatening contexts is encoded, in part, within an ascending amygdala-cortical circuit, whereas descending ACC projections to the amygdala drive generalized fear responses during exposure to novel contexts. Our results further demonstrate that schematic learning can occur in the PFC after single-trial learning, a process typically attributed to learning over many repeated learning episodes.