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Contextual Influence on Amygdala's Role in Fear Learning: Rat Pup Experiment

An experiment by Moriceau & Sullivan (2006) demonstrates how social context can modulate the amygdala's function in fear learning. When rat pups were conditioned with an odor paired with an electrical shock in their mother's absence, their amygdalas showed increased activation, and they developed an aversion to the odor. In contrast, when the mother was present during the same conditioning, there was no corresponding increase in amygdala activation, and the pups learned a preference for the odor. This highlights that maternal presence can inhibit the typical fear-learning response in the amygdala.

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