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To examine a biological basis for the seeming fearlessness of adolescents, investigators studied a mouse model of contextual fear conditioning during development and adulthood.
Adolescent mice, at ages corresponding to early, mid, and late adolescence, and adult and preadolescent mice were conditioned to shock plus tones in a specific context (cage was scented with peppermint). They were retested after exposure to the conditioned cue. The researchers also assessed postmortem excitatory postsynaptic potentials in the amygdala and hippocampal signaling pathway kinases (Akt and ERK2) in early adolescent and adult mice.
When re-exposed to the cue with peppermint odor, adolescent mice showed fewer freezing behaviors than adult and preadolescent mi…