Neural mechanisms of memory: the case of imprinting
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1
University of Cambridge, Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, Department of Zoology, United Kingdom
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2
Chavchavadze Tbilisi State University, Georgia
Imprinting occurs when a young precocial animal learns the characteristics of, and forms a social attachment to, an object to which it exposed. There is compelling evidence for the domestic chick that information about the imprinting stimulus is stored in a forebrain region known as the intermediate and medial mesopallium (IMM) [1]. A variety of changes occur in IMM that are specific to learning and memory. Many of these changes are time-dependent. Within 10 h after the end of training, such changes have been detected in: Fos immunoreactivity, phosphorylation of the protein kinase C substrate MARCKS, autophosphorylation of the calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII), the mean profile length of the postsynaptic density of axospinous synapses, presumed synaptic release of GABA and taurine, and the NMDA sub-type of glutamate receptor. Within this 10 h period also, storage in a supplementary memory region S' is established (1). By 24 h after training, further learning-specific changes have occurred in the IMM: the sleep-dependent stabilization of specific responsiveness of IMM neurons to the training stimulus [2] and learning-specific increases in the amounts of neural cell adhesion molecules (NCAMs), clathrin, amyloid precursor protein and MARCKS protein. We have demonstrated [3] that the increased amount of MARCKS protein 24 h after training is attributable to an increase in the amount of the membrane-bound, non-phosphorylated form of the protein and not the phosphorylated, cellular form. It is proposed that changes in the amount of MARCKS and NCAMs at 24 h may contribute to the stabilization of synaptic changes in IMM that occur through learning.
References
1. Horn 2004. Nature Rev Neurosci 5,108-120.
2. Jackson et al. 2008. Curr Biol 18,393-400.
3. Solomonia 2008. Exp Brain Res 188,323-330.
Conference:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster presentations
Citation:
McCabe
BJ,
Solomonia
RO and
Horn
G
(2009). Neural mechanisms of memory: the case of imprinting.
Conference Abstract:
41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.229
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Received:
11 Jun 2009;
Published Online:
11 Jun 2009.
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Correspondence:
Brian J McCabe, University of Cambridge, Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, Department of Zoology, Paris, United Kingdom, bjm1@cam.ac.uk