Question

In one last experiment, you decide to put together everything we’ve learned in PS337 by looking into the amygdala and measuring the activity of cells across numerous behavioral tasks that an animal performs. This animal is fear conditioned, and then undergoes memory extinction. Afterwards, it also gets food rewards and you utilize GCaMP to visualize the activity of these cells across all of these behaviors. Two subsets of cells exists that catch your interest: the first set is active during fear conditioning and quiet during extinction and reward; the second set is quiet during fear conditioning and becomes highly active during extinction and reward. You speculate that the first set of cells are _____ and the second set of cells are ________:

	A.	PPP1rb; Rspo2
	B.	In the poster amygdala; PPP1rb
	C.	In the anterior amygdala; Rspo2
	D.	Rspo2; PPP1rb
	E.	Projecting to the NAcc; PPP1rb

In the tail suspension and sucrose preference tasks, and antidepressant-like response would manifest as:

	A.	An increase in time spent struggling and a decrease in preference for sugar water
	B.	An increase in time spent struggling and an increase in preference for sugar water
	C.	An decrease in time spent struggling and a decrease in preference for sugar water
	D.	An decrease in time spent struggling and an increase in preference for sugar water
	E.	None of the above

The idea of artificially reactivating a memory requires a series of genetic tricks to “tag” the brain cells that are active during memory formation with optogenetic tools so that researchers can now optically turn a memory on. In class, we studied one of these systems. Which of the following is the correct sequence of events necessary to force the brain cells that hold onto a memory to now become light-sensitive. A brain cell becomes active which now activates:

	A.	The cFos promoter, then TRE, which then binds to TTA, which itself now upregulates the expression of ChR2
	B.	The cFos promoter, then TTA, which then binds to TRE, which itself now upregulates the expression of ChR2
	C.	The CREB promoter, then TTA, which then binds to TRE, which itself now upregulates the expression of ChR2
	D.	The CREB promoter, then TTA, which then binds to TRE, which itself now upregulates the expression of ChR2
	E.	The CREB promoter, then TTA, which then binds to TRE, which itself now upregulates the expression of NpHR

As a researcher, you know that states like anxiety and depression are actually “assembled” by a variety of symptoms, including changes in breathing, motivation, and exploration, each which has its own underlying neural circuitry. A patient comes into your office and says that when they feel anxious, their breathing rates go up dramatically, but a new drug on the market has helped with selectively decreasing their respiration rate. You predict that this drug may be targeting:

	A.	BNST inputs to the VTA
	B.	BNST inputs to the lateral hypothalamus
	C.	BNST inputs to the parabrachial nucleus
	D.	BNST inputs to the BLA
	E.	BNST inputs to the PFC

You’re interested in testing whether or not an animal will display anxiety-like behaviors when you modulate the activity of BLA inputs to the ventral hippocampus. You first decide to activate the BLA axons onto the ventral hippocampus with optogenetics during the open field test and elevated plus maze test, and based on previous findings, you would predict which of the following:

	A.	The animals will spend less time in the center of the open field and less time in the open arms of the plus maze
	B.	The animals will spend more time in the center of the open field and more time in the open arms of the plus maze
	C.	The animals will spend less time in the center of the open field and more time in the open arms of the plus maze
	D.	The animals will spend more time in the center of the open field and less time in the open arms of the plus maze
	E.	None of the abov

Answer 1

Question 1:

* Posterior amygdala; PPP1rb ( option B).

Question 2:

* An decrease in time spent struggling and a decrease in preference for sugar water ( option C).

Question 3:

* The CREB promoter, then TTA, which then binds to TRE, which itself now upregulates the expression of chR2 (option D).

Question 4:

* BNST inputs to parabrachial nucleus ( option C).

Question 5:

* The animals will spend more time in the centre of the open field and more time in the open arms of plus maze ( option B).