ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2015
Observation of Distressed Conspecific as a Model of Emotional Trauma Generates Silent Synapses in the Prefrontal-Amygdala Pathway and Enhances Fear Learning, but Ketamine Abolishes those Effects.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Ketamine in psychiatry: a systematic review of clinical applications, safety considerations, and emerging challenges.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Molecular pathways of ketamine: A systematic review of immediate and sustained effects on PTSD.Psychopharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Proximity in mice induced by an auditory-conditioned stimulus.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Beyond Fear Learning in Isolation: Integration of Social Dimensions into Aversive Learning.Current protocols · 2026Review
- The behavioral and neural architecture of observational active avoidance is shaped by demonstrator experience and observer sex.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Affiliation in mice induced by an auditory-conditioned stimulus.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Fear Synchrony of Mouse Dyads: Interaction of Sex Composition and Stress.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- Modifying the platform-mediated avoidance task: A new protocol to study active avoidance within a social context in rats.PloS one · 2025Article
- Oxytocin-induced birth causes sex-specific behavioral and brain connectivity changes in developing rat offspring.iScience · 2024Article
- Ventromedial prefrontal neurons represent self-states shaped by vicarious fear in male mice.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Social Synchronization of Conditioned Fear in Mice Requires Ventral Hippocampus Input to the Amygdala.Biological psychiatry · 2023Article
- Article
- Studying Synaptic Connectivity and Strength with Optogenetics and Patch-Clamp Electrophysiology.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Article
- Different Synaptic Plasticity After Physiological and Psychological Stress in the Anterior Insular Cortex in an Observational Fear Mouse Model.Frontiers in synaptic neuroscience · 2022Article
- Emotional contagion in nonhuman animals: A review.Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive science · 2022Review
- A modified mouse model for observational fear learning and the influence of social hierarchy.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Silent Synapses in Cocaine-Associated Memory and Beyond.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Review
- Maturation of amygdala inputs regulate shifts in social and fear behaviors: A substrate for developmental effects of stress.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Review
- Intra-prefrontal cyclosporine potentiates ketamine-induced fear extinction in rats.Experimental brain research · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Witnessing pain and distress in others can cause psychological trauma and increase odds of developing PTSD in the future, on exposure to another stressful event. However, the underlying synaptic process remains unknown. Here we report that mice exposed to a conspecific receiving electrical footshocks exhibited enhanced passive avoidance (PA) learning when trained 24 h after the exposure. The exposure activated neurons in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA) and altered synaptic transmission from dmPFC to BLA. It increased amplitude, slowed decay of NMDA receptor-mediated currents, and generated silent synapses. Administration of sub-anesthetic ketamine immediately after the exposure prevented the enhancement of PA learning and silent synapse formation. These findings suggest that ketamine can prevent pathophysiological consequences of psychological trauma.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.