Cited by 30Memory and Neural MechanismsThyroid Disorders and TreatmentsStress Responses and Cortisol

Adult-Onset Hypothyroidism Enhances Fear Memory and Upregulates Mineralocorticoid and Glucocorticoid Receptors in the Amygdala

Open access
Montero-Pedrazuela, Ana, Fernández-Lamo, Iván, Alieva, María, Pereda-Pérez, Inmaculada, Venero, César, Guadaño-Ferraz, Ana·2011·PLoS ONE

Abstract

Hypothyroidism is the most common hormonal disease in adults, which is frequently accompanied by learning and memory impairments and emotional disorders. However, the deleterious effects of thyroid hormones deficiency on emotional memory are poorly understood and often underestimated. To evaluate the consequences of hypothyroidism on emotional learning and memory, we have performed a classical Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm in euthyroid and adult-thyroidectomized Wistar rats. In this experimental model, learning acquisition was not impaired, fear memory was enhanced, memory extinction was delayed and spontaneous recovery of fear memory was exacerbated in hypothyroid rats. The potentiation of emotional memory under hypothyroidism was associated with an increase of corticosterone release after fear conditioning and with higher expression of glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors in the lateral and basolateral nuclei of the amygdala, nuclei that are critically involved in the circuitry of fear memory. Our results demonstrate for the first time that adult-onset hypothyroidism potentiates fear memory and also increases vulnerability to develop emotional memories. Furthermore, our findings suggest that enhanced corticosterone signaling in the amygdala is involved in the pathophysiological mechanisms of fear memory potentiation. Therefore, we recommend evaluating whether inappropriate regulation of fear in patients with post-traumatic stress and other mental disorders is associated with abnormal levels of thyroid hormones, especially those patients refractory to treatment.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1371/journal.pone.0026582

Cites

80 of 80 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Previous studies have described a role for thyroid hormone signaling in the amygdala in regulating fear learning and in the MeA specifically in modulating social vigilance.

    “Previous studies have described a role for thyroid hormone signaling in the amygdala in regulating fear learning [78,79] and in the MeA specifically in modulating social vigilance [80].”

    From Rapid changes in plasma corticosterone and medial amygdala transcriptome profiles during social status change reveal molecular pathways associated with a major life history transition in mouse dominance hierarchies (2025) · cites this paper as [79]

    The Introduction and Discussion (pages unavailable) link thyroid hormone status and amygdala changes to fear conditioning, and report enhanced fear memory and delayed extinction in hypothyroid rats. The Discussion also says initial learning of the aversive association was unaffected, so the paper supports a role in fear-memory processing rather than a general effect on fear learning. The separate MeA/social-vigilance clause is cited to [80], not this source. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 82 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [43]Bouton ME 2004 Context and behavioral processes in extinction. Learn Mem 11 485 494 15466298

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Montero-Pedrazuela, A., Fernández-Lamo, I., Alieva, M., Pereda-Pérez, I., Venero, C., & Guadaño-Ferraz, A.
Affiliations
  • Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (ES)
  • Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (ES)
Corresponding author
Venero, César
Venue
PLoS ONE
Published
2011-10-24
Volume
6
Issue
10
Pages
e26582
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2058936529
Cited by
30
References
82
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 3
FWCI
0.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (SAF2009-09129)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Thyroid Disorders and Treatments
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
Keywords
adult-onset hypothyroidism, fear memory, amygdala, mineralocorticoid receptor, glucocorticoid receptor, corticosterone, thyroidectomy, fear extinction, memory extinction, emotional memory, post-traumatic stress disorder, thyroid hormones
MeSH terms
Adult, Amygdala, Animals, Fear, Humans, Hypothyroidism, Memory, Receptors, Glucocorticoid, Age of Onset, Receptors, Mineralocorticoid, Rats

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review