BRAIN Fear conditioning and prefrontal EEG

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Fear Conditioning and Prefrontal EEG Patterns

Article companion for "Neurobehavioural Effects of Fear Conditioning: Linking Freezing Behaviour to Prefrontal EEG Patterns".

Authors: Andrei Teodor Bratu, Florin Zamfirache, Gabriela Narcisa Prundaru, Cristina Dumitru, and Beatrice Mihaela Radu.

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Prefrontal EEG activity
Freezing episodes Trace amplitude increases during freezing episodes.

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The interface follows the study's core finding: fear conditioning changed emotional and defensive behaviour, while prefrontal EEG differences appeared most clearly during freezing episodes rather than as global or lateralised shifts.

01Behaviour

Emotional reactivity changed

Conditioned rats spent less time in open arms of the Elevated Plus Maze and showed more immobility during Forced Swim testing. Open Field and Novel Object Recognition did not show significant changes.

02Prefrontal EEG

No global EEG shift

Comparisons before versus after aversive stimulation did not reveal significant broadband prefrontal power changes. Left-right prefrontal comparisons also remained non-significant.

03Freezing state

Broadband power increased

During freezing episodes, delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma power all increased significantly, suggesting state-dependent prefrontal modulation during defensive behaviour.

DomainSignificant article resultInterpretation used here
Elevated Plus MazeOpen-arm time decreased after conditioning.Anxiety-like behaviour increased.
Forced Swim TestImmobility increased after conditioning.Depression-like/passive coping behaviour increased.
OFT and NORNo significant effects were found.Exploratory and cognitive performance remained relatively preserved.
Freezing EEGAll measured frequency bands increased during freezing.Defensive behaviour carried the clearest prefrontal EEG signature.

Experimental Pathway

From aversive cue pairing to state-dependent EEG

Stage 01

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    Figure 01

    Experimental group behavioural results

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