a-behavioral-task-modeling-everyday-memory-an-event-arena-to-foster

A Behavioral Task Modeling 'Everyday Memory' in an Event Arena to Foster Allocentric Representations for Rodents

The event arena provides an optimal platform to investigate learning and memory. The appetitive everyday memory task described in this paper provides a ...

University of Edinburgh

Memory encoding occurs rapidly, but the consolidation of memory in the neocortex has long been held to be a more gradual process. We now report, however, that systems consolidation can occur extremely quickly if an associative "schema" into which new information is incorporated has previously been created. In experiments using a hippocampal-dependent paired-associate task for rats, the memory of flavor-place associations became persistent over time as a putative neocortical schema gradually developed. New traces, trained for only one trial, then became assimilated and rapidly hippocampal-independent. Schemas also played a causal role in the creation of lasting associative memory representations during one-trial learning. The concept of neocortical schemas may unite psychological accounts of knowledge structures with neurobiological theories of systems memory consolidation.

Schemas and memory consolidation.

Weakly tetanized synapses in area CA1 of the hippocampus that ordinarily display long-term potentiation lasting approximately 3 h (called early-LTP) will maintain a longer-lasting change in efficacy (late-LTP) if the weak tetanization occurs shortly before or after strong tetanization of an independent, but convergent, set of synapses in CA1. The synaptic tagging and capture hypothesis explains this heterosynaptic influence on persistence in terms of a distinction between local mechanisms of synaptic tagging and cell-wide mechanisms responsible for the synthesis, distribution, and capture of plasticity-related proteins (PRPs). We now present evidence that distinct CaM kinase (CaMK) pathways serve a dissociable role in these mechanisms. Using a hippocampal brain-slice preparation that permits stable long-term recordings in vitro for >10 h and using hippocampal cultures to validate the differential drug effects on distinct CaMK pathways, we show that tag setting is blocked by the CaMK inhibitor KN-93 (2-[N-(2-hydroxyethyl)]-N-(4-methoxybenzenesulfonyl)amino-N-(4-chlorocinnamyl)-N-methylbenzylamine) that, at low concentration, is more selective for CaMKII. In contrast, the CaMK kinase inhibitor STO-609 [7H-benzimidazo(2,1-a)benz(de)isoquinoline-7-one-3-carboxylic acid] specifically limits the synthesis and/or availability of PRPs. Analytically powerful three-pathway protocols using sequential strong and weak tetanization in varying orders and test stimulation over long periods of time after LTP induction enable a pharmacological dissociation of these distinct roles of the CaMK pathways in late-LTP and so provide a novel framework for the molecular mechanisms by which synaptic potentiation, and possibly memories, become stabilized.

Synaptic tagging and capture: differential role of distinct calcium/calmodulin kinases in protein synthesis-dependent long-term potentiation.

The retention of episodic-like memory is enhanced, in humans and animals, when something novel happens shortly before or after encoding. Using an everyday memory task in mice, we sought the neurons mediating this dopamine-dependent novelty effect, previously thought to originate exclusively from the tyrosine-hydroxylase-expressing (TH) neurons in the ventral tegmental area. Here we report that neuronal firing in the locus coeruleus is especially sensitive to environmental novelty, locus coeruleus TH neurons project more profusely than ventral tegmental area TH neurons to the hippocampus, optogenetic activation of locus coeruleus TH neurons mimics the novelty effect, and this novelty-associated memory enhancement is unaffected by ventral tegmental area inactivation. Surprisingly, two effects of locus coeruleus TH photoactivation are sensitive to hippocampal D/D receptor blockade and resistant to adrenoceptor blockade: memory enhancement and long-lasting potentiation of synaptic transmission in CA1 ex vivo. Thus, locus coeruleus TH neurons can mediate post-encoding memory enhancement in a manner consistent with possible co-release of dopamine in the hippocampus.

Locus coeruleus and dopaminergic consolidation of everyday memory.

While hippocampal and cortical mechanisms of memory consolidation have long been studied, their interaction is poorly understood. We sought to investigate potential interactions with respect to trace dominance, strengthening, and interference associated with postencoding novelty or sleep. A learning procedure was scheduled in a watermaze that placed the impact of novelty and sleep in opposition. Distinct behavioural manipulations-context preexposure or interference during memory retrieval-differentially affected trace dominance and trace survival, respectively. Analysis of immediate early gene expression revealed parallel up-regulation in the hippocampus and cortex, sustained in the hippocampus in association with novelty but in the cortex in association with sleep. These findings shed light on dynamically interacting mechanisms mediating the stabilization of hippocampal and neocortical memory traces. Hippocampal memory traces followed by novelty were more dominant by default but liable to interference, whereas sleep engaged a lasting stabilization of cortical traces and consequent trace dominance after preexposure.

The Yin and Yang of Memory Consolidation: Hippocampal and Neocortical.

The testing of cognitive enhancers could benefit from the development of novel behavioural tasks that display better translational relevance for daily memory and permit the examination of potential targets in a within-subjects manner with less variability. We here outline an optimized spatial 'everyday memory' task. We calibrate it systematically by interrogating certain well-established determinants of memory and consider its potential for revealing novel features of encoding-related gene activation. Rats were trained in an event arena in which food was hidden in sandwells in a different location everyday. They found the food during an initial memory-encoding trial and were then required to remember the location in six alternative choice or probe trials at various time-points later. Training continued daily over a period of 4 months, realizing a stable high level of performance and characterized by delay-dependent forgetting over 24 h. Spaced but not massed access to multiple rewards enhanced the persistence of memory, as did post-encoding administration of the PDE4 inhibitor Rolipram. Quantitative PCR and then genome-wide analysis of gene expression led to a new observation - stronger gene-activation in hippocampus and retrosplenial cortex following spaced than massed training. In a subsidiary study, a separate group of animals replicated aspects of this training profile, going on to show enhanced memory when training was subject to post-encoding environmental novelty. Distinctive features of this protocol include its potential validity as a model of memory encoding used routinely by human subjects everyday, and the possibility of multiple within-subject comparisons to speed up assays of novel compounds.

Patrick A. Spooner

Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences,
Edinburgh Neuroscience

University of Edinburgh

A Behavioral Task Modeling 'Everyday Memory' in an Event Arena to Foster Allocentric Representations for Rodents

Patrick A. Spooner

.css-o250i3{font-size:18px;font-family:Open Sans,sans-serif;line-height:21.6px;}Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences,Edinburgh Neuroscience

University of Edinburgh

A Behavioral Task Modeling 'Everyday Memory' in an Event Arena to Foster Allocentric Representations for Rodents

Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences,
Edinburgh Neuroscience