Work

Safety Signals Enable Single-Session Active Avoidance Paradigm and Expose Threat Generalization in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Animals must flexibly discriminate between threat and nonthreat to deploy adaptive defensive strategies. We introduce a single-session differential signaled active avoidance paradigm that temporally dissociates acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval of instrumental avoidance memory. Interleaving a behaviorally noncontingent neutral cue (CS-) with a threat-predictive, behaviorally contingent cue (CS+) enhanced long-term memory without altering acquisition, demonstrating that differential contingency structure selectively reinforces memory consolidation rather than influencing learning performance. Naive mice of either sex inferred contingencies within a single session, and discrimination achieved during training predicted retrieval precision. However, discrimination operated within defined boundary conditions: Extended training or elevated threat intensity destabilized cue specificity and promoted persistent avoidance generalization. Under high-threat conditions, freezing and shuttling coemerged as complementary defensive responses, indicating a shift from precise cue-based encoding to a generalized defensive state. Remote retrieval recruited oxytocin receptor-expressing cells in the medial prefrontal cortex and activated mTORC1-dependent translational signaling, implicating protein synthesis in maintenance of discriminative avoidance memory. In a tuberous sclerosis complex mouse model with Tsc2 haploinsufficiency in oxytocin-responsive cells, males displayed intact acquisition but generalized avoidance at both recent and remote time points, a deficit not rescued by additional training. These findings identify oxytocin-modulated translational control as a molecular gate stabilizing threat-safety discrimination and show that disruption of this axis-by excessive threat or reduced Tsc2 gene dosage-biases memory toward pathological generalization, providing a mechanistic framework for safety-learning deficits in neurodevelopmental and anxiety-related disorders.

Source: eNeuro

DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0123-26.2026