Investigations of fear conditioning in rodents and humans have illuminated the neural mechanisms of fear acquisition and extinction. However, the neural mechanism of memory consolidation of fear conditioning is not well understood. To address this question, we measured brain activity and the changes in functional connectivity following fear acquisition using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The amygdala-dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and hippocampus-insula functional connectivity were enhanced, whereas the amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) functional coupling was decreased during fear memory consolidation. Furthermore, the amygdala-mPFC functional connectivity was negatively correlated with the subjective fear ratings. These findings suggest the amygdala functional connectivity with dACC and mPFC may play an important role in memory consolidation of fear conditioning. The change of amygdala-mPFC functional connectivity could predict the subjective fear. Accordingly, this study provides a new perspective for understanding fear memory consolidation.
Lower parental education impairs cognitive abilities of their offspring such as general fluid intelligence dependent on the prefrontal cortex (PFC), but the independent contribution of mother's and father's education is unknown. We used an individual difference approach to test whether mother's and father's education independently affected general fluid intelligence in emerging adulthood at both the behavioral and neural level. Behaviorally, mother's but not father's education accounted for unique variance in general fluid intelligence in emerging adulthood (assessed by the Raven's advanced progressive matrices). Neurally, the whole-brain correlation analysis revealed that the regional gray matter volume (rGMV) in the medial PFC was related to both mother's education and general fluid intelligence but not father's education. Furthermore, after controlling for mother's education, the association between general fluid intelligence and the rGMV in medial PFC was no longer significant, indicating that mother's education plays an important role in influencing the structure of the medial PFC associated with general fluid intelligence. Taken together, our study provides the first behavioral and neural evidence that mother's education is a more important determinant of general cognitive ability in emerging adulthood than father's education.
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