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Experimental research in Psychology is characterized by ensuring a method that guarantees objectivity, reliability, validity and replication of results. In this theoretical study we propose a set of criteria for the preparation and review of quasi-experimental and experimental research manuscripts, which follows such methodological objective dictates. These criteria are based on a review of structural aspects in experimental research, in the modern theory of psychological theorization, and in the validity theory of scientific research. All these aspects are complemented with those proposed in revisions about empirically-based, statistically-based peer-review systems, and recently refined according to the expert judgment approach. We distinguish between essential, obligatory, complementary, and methodological criteria. These norms are organized according to a measuring tool -the ExperimenCheck2 system-, including report characteristics, antecedents, theoretical development, design, analysis and interpretation of results, format and bibliographical sources, also summarized in the form of a conceptual map. We also introduce the general guidelines of a reviewing process that fulfils scientific criteria, using the proposed evaluative guideline as the main organizing principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of context in retrieval of the information is explored, focusing in the differential effects of context change on acquisition and interfering information. Retrieval theory has proposed that context changes affect a specific type of information, either inhibitory or second-learned, interfering information. We propose a modification of retrieval theory based on recent results in our laboratory that suggests that context-specificity does not depend on specific features of the information, but on specific features of the situation that lead participants to pay attention to the context. Once there is something in the situation that leads participants to pay attention to the context, all the information learned seems to become context specific, regardless of whether it is the first or the second meaning of the cue. The outlines of this attentional theory of context processing are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extinction of learned fear is a hippocampus-dependent process thought to embody new learning rather than erasure of the original fear memory, although it is unknown how these competing contextual memories are represented in the hippocampus. We previously demonstrated that contextual fear conditioning results in hippocampal place cell remapping and long-term stabilization of novel representations. Here we report that extinction learning also induces place cell remapping in C57BL/6 mice. Specifically, we observed cells that preferentially remapped during different stages of learning. While some cells remapped in both fear conditioning and extinction, others responded predominantly during extinction, which may serve to modify previous representations as well as encode new safe associations. Additionally, we found cells that remapped primarily during fear conditioning, which could facilitate reacquisition of the original fear association. Moreover, we also observed cells that were stable throughout learning, which may serve to encode the static aspects of the environment. The short-term remapping observed during extinction was not found in animals that did not undergo fear conditioning, or when extinction was conducted outside of the conditioning context. Finally, conditioning and extinction produced an increase in spike phase locking to the theta and gamma frequencies. However, the degree of remapping seen during conditioning and extinction only correlated with gamma synchronization. Our results suggest that the extinction learning is a complex process that involves both modification of pre-existing memories and formation of new ones, and these traces coexist within the same hippocampal representation., (Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/359122-15$15.00/0.)

Fear is an emotional response to danger that is highly conserved throughout evolution because it is critical for survival. Accordingly, episodic memory for fearful locations is widely studied using contextual fear conditioning, a hippocampus-dependent task (Kim and Fanselow, 1992; Phillips and LeDoux, 1992). The hippocampus has been implicated in episodic emotional memory and is thought to integrate emotional stimuli within a spatial framework. Physiological evidence supporting the role of the hippocampus in contextual fear indicates that pyramidal cells in this region, which fire in specific locations as an animal moves through an environment, shift their preferred firing locations shortly after the presentation of an aversive stimulus (Moita et al., 2004). However, the long-term physiological mechanisms through which emotional memories are encoded by the hippocampus are unknown. Here we show that during and directly after a fearful experience, new hippocampal representations are established and persist in the long term. We recorded from the same place cells in mouse hippocampal area CA1 over several days during predator odor contextual fear conditioning and found that a subset of cells changed their preferred firing locations in response to the fearful stimulus. Furthermore, the newly formed representations of the fearful context stabilized in the long term. Our results demonstrate that place cells respond to the presence of an aversive stimulus, modify their firing patterns during emotional learning, and stabilize a long-term spatial representation in response to a fearful encounter. The persistent nature of these representations may contribute to the enduring quality of emotional memories.