Neurobiology of the persistence of traumatic memories

Project Information

FEAR AND TRAUMA

Grant agreement ID: 252829

Project closed

Start date 1 May 2010

End date 30 April 2011

Funded under

• Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Total cost € 172 565,20

EU contribution € 172 565,20

Coordinated by

ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE
Switzerland

Objective

Fearful traumatic experiences can lead to the formation of traumatic memories that are frequently associated with persistent psychopathologies. The main aim of the present proposal is to identify key neural mechanisms whereby behavioral principles which are essential for the psychological integrity of the individual, get impaired under certain emotional and stressful conditions, eventually leading to psychopathology. We hypothesize that some of the key behavioral distortions leading to emotional disturbances (e.g. generalization of conditioned fear and the inefficiency of extinction processes when applied to recent fear memories) share common underlying neurobiological mechanisms which critically involve special properties of amygdala functioning under conditions of high or extreme emotional distress. We also hypothesize that individual differences in amygdala reactivity will be implicated in individuals’ proneness to develop these behavioral distortions. By focusing on the inefficiency of extinction processes when applied to recent fear memories as a working model to understand the mediating mechanisms, we will investigate in rats the involvement of corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) and of synaptic proteins (glutamate receptor subunits, cell adhesion molecules) with a role in circuit and memory formation. In addition, we aim to apply a developmental perspective to assess whether early life experiences can be effective, when reactivated in adulthood, to overcome these behavioral distortions. These objectives will be tackled by using a multidisciplinary technical approach within state-of-the-art facilities in the laboratory of Prof. C. Sandi at the Brain Mind Institute in Lausanne. This project will be a major step in my career towards becoming an independent researcher, and the ideal basis for the establishment of collaborations extremely valuable for my future career.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

• natural sciences › biological sciences › neurobiology
• natural sciences › biological sciences › biochemistry › biomolecules › proteins
• natural sciences › biological sciences › cell biology

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Programme(s)

• FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

• FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF - Marie Curie Action: "Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development"

Call for proposal

FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE

• EU contribution: € 172 565,20
• Address: BATIMENT CE 3316 STATION 1 ; 1015 Lausanne ; Switzerland
• Region: Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera › Région lémanique › Vaud
• Activity type: Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
• Total cost: No data