Encoding Fear of Heights by Basolateral Amygdala Neurons

SUMMARY Fear of heights is evolutionarily important for survival, yet it is unclear how and which brain regions encode such height threats. Given the importance of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in processing both learned and innate fear, we investigated how BLA neurons may respond to high place exposure in freely behaving mice. We found that a discrete set of BLA neurons exhibited robust firing increases when the mouse was either exploring or placed on a high place, accompanied by increased heart rate and freezing. Importantly, these high-place fear neurons were only activated under height threats but not mild anxiogenic conditions. Furthermore, after a fear conditioning procedure, these high-place fear neurons developed conditioned responses to the context, but not the cue, indicating a convergence in encoding of dangerous/risky contextual information. Our results provide insights into the neural representation of the fear of heights and may have implications for treatment of excessive fear disorders.