Enkephalin constrains fear learning via volume transmission to the lateral amygdala

Abstract

Fear learning involves the formation of associations between cues and aversive outcomes, a process that must be tightly regulated to prevent excessive or generalised fear. Dopamine release in the lateral amygdala (LA) drives fear acquisition, whereas endogenous opioids constrain it. However, whether opioids are dynamically released within the amygdala circuits during learning, and how they exert this control remain unclear. Here we show that met-enkephalin is locally released within the amygdala during auditory fear conditioning, with signals shifting from the aversive outcome to its predictive cue as learning progresses. The amygdalo-striatal transition zone (ASt), is the principal source of this enkephalin, released from medium spiny neurons receiving strong auditory thalamic input. This enkephalin spreads from the ASt to the LA via volume transmission. Selective knockdown in the ASt abolished opioid signals and enhanced fear learning, demonstrating that this diffuse signal constrains fear memory formation. We further show that enkephalin suppresses dopamine release in both the ASt and LA via {micro}-opioid receptors, identifying the ASt as a neuromodulator hub coordinating opioid and dopaminergic signalling across amygdala fear circuits. Although demonstrated here for auditory fear learning, the ASt receives multimodal sensory input, suggesting a broader mechanism through which sensory experience recruits enkephalin release to gate associative learning