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Prevailing models propose that sensory stimulus-evoked activity in the LA is subsequently propagated to its downstream nuclei: the basal amygdala (BA) and central amygdala (CeA). To test this assumption, we performed in vivo electrophysiological recordings in awake, head-fixed male and female mice. We found that tone presentation did not elicit a significant increase in firing in BA or CeA neurons. In contrast, shock presentation evoked similarly robust spiking responses in LA and BA neurons but only a modest increase in CeA neurons. Notably, neurons in the amygdalostriatal transition area (AStria) exhibited LA-like sensory stimulus-evoked responses at both short (&lt;25 ms) and longer (&lt;500 ms) timescales. To examine the role of feedforward inhibition in tone- and shock-evoked activity, we investigated the contribution of parvalbumin interneurons using optogenetics and found that short-latency (&lt;25 ms) spiking in both the LA and AStria was regulated by these inhibitory cells. Finally, LA and AStria neurons exhibited remarkably similar response types, spiking dynamics, and pairing-induced plasticity during repeated tone presentations, subsequent tone\u2013shock pairings, and post-pairing tone presentations. Together, these findings support a model in which the LA and AStria operate in parallel, similarly integrating tone and shock signals during fear conditioning, whereas BA and CeA neurons are not robustly recruited by these sensory stimuli under the conditions tested.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.64898\/2026.06.12.731865","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,14]],"date-time":"2026-06-14T08:00:11Z","timestamp":1781424011000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The Amygdalostriatal Transition Area Exhibits Lateral Amygdala\u2013Like Spiking Activity and Tone\u2013Shock Pairing\u2013Induced Plasticity"],"prefix":"10.64898","author":[{"given":"D\u00e1niel","family":"Magyar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"The Linda and Jack Gill Institute for Neuroscience, Indiana University Bloomington, 47405 Bloomington, Indiana, IN"},{"name":"J\u00e1nos Szent\u00e1gothai Doctoral School of Neurosciences, Semmelweis University, 1085 Budapest, Hungary"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"M\u00e1ria Rita","family":"Karl\u00f3cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Linda and Jack Gill Institute for Neuroscience, Indiana University Bloomington, 47405 Bloomington, Indiana, IN"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Norbert","family":"H\u00e1jos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Linda and Jack Gill Institute for Neuroscience, Indiana University Bloomington, 47405 Bloomington, Indiana, IN"},{"name":"Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, 47405, Indiana, IN"},{"name":"\u2019Lend\u00fclet\u2019 Laboratory of Network Neurophysiology, HUN-REN Institute of Experimental Medicine, 1083 Budapest, Hungary"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"54368","reference":[{"key":"2026061603300489000_2026.06.12.731865v1.1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1309","DOI":"10.1038\/s41593-024-01676-6","article-title":"Fear learning induces synaptic potentiation between engram neurons in the rat lateral amygdala","volume":"27","year":"2024","journal-title":"Nat Neurosci"},{"key":"2026061603300489000_2026.06.12.731865v1.2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.aat3810"},{"key":"2026061603300489000_2026.06.12.731865v1.3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1213","DOI":"10.1002\/hipo.22600","article-title":"Subcortical connections of the perirhinal, postrhinal, and entorhinal cortices of the rat","volume":"26","year":"2016","journal-title":"II. efferents. 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