FEAR-POTENTIATED STARTLE IN 2 STRAINS OF INBRED MICE

The fear-potentiated startle paradigm has been used with great success to examine conditioned fear in both rats and humans. The purpose of t his study was to examine fear-potentiated startle in inbred mice. One- month-old C57BL/6J (C57) and DBA/2J (DBA) mice were given tone + foot shock training trials. The amplitude of the acoustic startle reflex wa s measured in the presence and absence of the tone both before and aft er training. Both strains showed fear-potentiated startle after traini ng as evidenced by larger startle amplitudes in the presence of the to ne than in its absence. However, the magnitude of fear-potentiated sta rtle was greater in DBA mice than in C57 mice. These results not only demonstrate fear-potentiated startle in mice for the first time but al so suggest that fear-potentiated startle can be influenced by characte ristics of the mouse strain.