Context is an ever-present combination of discrete environmental elements capable of influencing many psychological processes. When context is associated with an aversive stimulus, a permanent contextual fear memory is formed. Context is hypothesized to greatly influence the treatability of various fear-based pathologies, in particular, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In order to understand how contextual fear memories are encoded and impact underlying fear pathology, delineation of the underlying neural circuitry of contextual fear memory consolidation and maintenance is essential. Past understandings of contextual fear suggest that the hippocampus only creates a unitary, or single, representation of context. This representation is sent to the amygdala, which creates the associative contextual fear memory. In contrast, here we review new evidence from the literature showing contextual fear memories to be consolidated and maintained by both amygdala and hippocampus. Based on this evidence, we revise the current model of contextual fear memory consolidation, highlighting a larger role for hippocampus. This new model may better explain the role of the hippocampus in PTSD.

情境是能够影响许多心理过程的离散环境元素的一种持续存在的组合。当情境与厌恶刺激相关时，就会形成永久的情境恐惧记忆。假设背景会极大地影响各种基于恐惧的病理，尤其是创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）的可治疗性。为了理解上下文恐惧记忆是如何编码的并影响潜在的恐惧病理，描述上下文恐惧记忆的巩固和维持的潜在神经电路的描述是必不可少的。过去对上下文恐惧的理解表明，海马仅创建上下文的单一或单个表示。该表示被发送到杏仁核，杏仁核创建了关联的上下文恐惧记忆。相比之下，在这里，我们回顾了来自文献的新证据，这些证据表明背景恐惧记忆将由杏仁核和海马体巩固和维持。基于此证据，我们修订了当前的上下文恐惧记忆巩固模型，强调了海马体的更大作用。这个新模型可能更好地解释了海马在PTSD中的作用。