Several forms of long-term depression (LTD) of glutamatergic synaptic transmission have been identified in the dorsal striatum and in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Such experience-dependent synaptic plasticity might play important roles in reward-related learning. The GABA[subscript A] receptor agonist muscimol was recently found to trigger a…

The synaptic Ras/Rap-GTPase-activating protein (SynGAP1) plays a unique role in regulating specific downstream intracellular events in response to N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) activation. Constitutive heterozygous loss of SynGAP1 disrupts NMDAR-mediated physiological and behavioral processes, but the disruptions might be of developmental…

There is a plethora of research suggesting that daily stressors and fatigue can have a significant effect on learning and various cognitive functions in young adults. Little is known, however, about how these effects impact learning and other neurocognitive functions in students with learning challenges when compared to their counterparts without…

We examined the organization and function of the ventral object processing pathway. The prevailing theoretical approach in this field holds that the ventral object processing stream has a modular organization, in which visual perception is carried out in posterior regions and visual memory is carried out, independently, in the anterior temporal…

Pyramidal neurons in the piriform cortex from olfactory-discrimination (OD) trained rats undergo synaptic modifications that last for days after learning. A particularly intriguing modification is reduced paired-pulse facilitation (PPF) in the synapses interconnecting these cells; a phenomenon thought to reflect enhanced synaptic release. The…

It is known from studies outside the brain that upon binding to its receptor, angiotensin-(1-7) elicits the release of prostanoids and nitric oxide (NO). Cyclooxygenase (COX) is a key enzyme that converts arachidonic acid to prostaglandins. Since there are no data available so far on the role of COX-2 in the amygdala, in a first step we…

Previous reports have shown that overexpression of the growth- and plasticity-associated protein GAP-43 improves memory. However, the relation between the levels of this protein to memory enhancement remains unknown. Here, we studied this issue in transgenic mice (G-Phos) overexpressing native, chick GAP-43. These G-Phos mice could be divided at…

Fear conditioning is a popular model for investigating physiological and cellular mechanisms of memory formation. In this paradigm, a footshock is either systematically associated to a tone (paired conditioning) or is pseudorandomly distributed (unpaired conditioning). In the former procedure, the tone/shock association is acquired, whereas in the…

Information that is spaced over time is better remembered than the same amount of information massed together. This phenomenon, known as the spacing effect, was explored with respect to its effect on learning and neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation. Because the cells are generated over time and because learning…

Historically, sensory systems have been largely ignored as potential loci of information storage in the neurobiology of learning and memory. They continued to be relegated to the role of "sensory analyzers" despite consistent findings of associatively induced enhancement of responses in primary sensory cortices to behaviorally important signal…

The usefulness of"memory" is being questioned as a concept for explaining the facts of remembering. The brain is an extensive and elaborate switching system for organizing sensory inputs from environmental situations and for generating appropriate and properly timed responses to them. The learning of knowledge consists of learning a…

This article discusses past research on the hemispheric process of the brain, proposes an educational perspective based on this research, and lists several areas for interdisciplinary study of the relationship between education and the psychobiological dimensions of learning and learning problems. In developing an educational perspective of the…

Reviews a study which sought to obtain a quantitative metabolic map of the neurons mediating a specific memory. Research results support notions of cooperative processes in which nonrandom behavior of high ensembles of neural elements mediates the integration and processing of information and the retrieval of memory. (ML)

The cAMP/PKA pathway plays a critical role in learning and memory systems in animals ranging from mice to "Drosophila" to "Aplysia." Studies of olfactory learning in "Drosophila" suggest that altered expression of either positive or negative regulators of the cAMP/PKA signaling pathway beyond a certain optimum range may be deleterious. Here we…