the enhancing effects of platform stress on the acquisition of inhibitory avoidance learning when administered prior to conditioning and 2) the impairment in extinction caused by pre-extinction stress exposure. By means of a similar olfactory-fear conditioning paradigm, Laviolette and co-workers also demonstrated that asymmetrical, interhemispheric injection of AM251 in the BLA-mPFC pathway prior to conditioning, dose dependently prevented the encoding of associative fear memory as demonstrated by decreased percentage time spent freezing and increased spontaneous exploratory activity upon CS+ presentation (Laviolette and Grace, 2006a). These data indicate that eCB signaling in the BLA is critical for extinction of aversive conditioned responses but could also be important for the acquisition of these responses.
