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Example of Amygdala's Role in Fear Memory: Josselyn's Rat Experiment

Josselyn's 2010 experiment with rats illustrates the amygdala's role in memory storage. Using Pavlovian conditioning, rats were taught to associate a neutral tone with a foot shock, which produced a fear memory causing them to freeze defensively upon hearing the tone. However, when researchers induced cell death in the neurons of the lateral amygdala, the conditioned fear memory faded and became extinct, demonstrating that this region is essential for retaining fear-based memories.

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Updated 2026-05-03

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