Reconsolidation of Pavlovian Conditioned Defense Responses in the Amygdala

The ability to learn about adverse events has a special significance for survival. A body of work established the key role of the amygdala in acquisition, consolidation, and extinction of defense (fear) responses that protect the organism in the presence of learned threats. More than a decade ago, our lab showed that exposure to a learned threat, leading to the retrieval or reactivation of the memory, leads to a reconsolidation (re-storage) of the memory in the amygdala. This finding reinvigorated interest in the role of memory retrieval in memory stability and change. In this chapter, we summarize research on the role of the amygdala in defense learning and memory and then discuss memory reconsolidation in the amygdala and its theoretical and clinical implications.