Identification of quantitative trait loci involved in contextual and auditory-cued fear conditioning in BXD recombinant inbred strains

Fear conditioning shows associations formed between contextual or auditory stimuli with an unconditioned stimulus. Inbred mouse strains differ in their ability to demonstrate fear conditioning, suggesting at least a partial genetic influence. The present study identified the possible chromosomal loci regulating fear conditioning in BXD recombinant inbred strains using quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis. Estimates of heritability for all 3 measures of conditioning were about .28. Correlational analyses between genetic markers and strain means identified multiple putative QTLs. The strongest associations were on Chromosomes 1 and 17 for freezing to the context, Chromosome 12 for freezing to an altered context, and Chromosome 1 for freezing to the auditory stimulus. Overlapping QTLs may indicate some common genes that underlie aspects of this learning task.