Individual differences in fear memory expression engage distinct functional brain networks

Freezing-dominant zebrafish (Danio rerio) during contextual fear recall show strong pallial–cerebellar connectivity and increased visual–thalamic-like interconnectivity, distinguishing them from evaders.

• Why it matters: Individual differences in fear expression are common across species, but the brain networks that encode distinct behavioral fear types during memory recall are unclear.
• What they did: Adult zebrafish underwent contextual fear conditioning with conspecific alarm substance (CAS), then memory expression was clustered into four behavioral types; whole-brain activity mapping and functional network analysis compared network connectivity across types.
• The result: Behavioral types during recall map onto divergent brain-wide networks: freezers exhibit strong pallial–cerebellar connections, while evading freezers show higher subpallial connectivity to autonomic and stress-regulatory regions.

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