Year: 2015
Type: preprint
Abstract: The simplicity and tractability of the neural circuits mediating behaviors in invertebrates have facilitated the cellular/molecular dissection of neural mechanisms underlying learning. The review has a particular focus on the general principles that have emerged from analyses of an example of nonassociative learning, sensitization in the marine mollusk Aplysia. Learning and memory rely on multiple mechanisms of plasticity at multiple sites of the neuronal circuits, with the relative contribution to memory of the different sites varying as a function of the extent of training and time after training. The same intracellular signaling cascades that induce short-term modifications in synaptic transmission can also be used to induce long-term changes. Although short-term memory relies on covalent modifications of preexisting proteins, long-term memory also requires regulated gene transcription and translation. Maintenance of long-term cellular memory involves both intracellular and extracellular feedback loops, which sustain the regulation of gene expression and the modification of targeted molecules.
Authors: John H. Byrne, Robert D. Hawkins
Institutions: New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University
Language: English
Topic: Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4254268142