Mechanisms of Hebbian Long-Term Potentiation and Learning

小行星9410579 这个项目的目标是解释学习和记忆的无脊椎动物的机制，海蛞蝓。 介导某些简单防御性退缩反射的感觉和运动神经元可以从动物的神经系统中取出，并在细胞培养中生长;在这里，它们将改革它们原来的连接（称为突触）。 细胞培养中的这些突触对于分析突触强度的学习相关变化的机制是理想的。 最近，这些研究人员发现，在培养物中，在感觉神经元和运动神经元之间形成的突触表现出类似于脊椎动物神经系统中突触处发生的长期变化，并且被认为介导了联想学习。 这种突触变化被称为“长时程增强”（LTP）。 本计画将在细胞培养的失智症突触中分析LTP的细胞机制，并确定感觉运动突触的LTP是否介导整个动物的失智症退缩反射的经典条件反射。 我们希望，了解相对简单的神经系统是如何介导学习的，这将有助于我们进一步了解哺乳动物复杂得多的神经系统是如何介导更复杂形式的学习和记忆的。

9410579 Glanzman The goal of this project is to explain the mechanisms of learning and memory in an invertebrate animal, the sea slug Aplysia. The sensory and motor neurons which mediate certain simple defensive withdrawal reflexes of Aplysia can be removed from the animal's nervous system and grown in cell culture; here they will reform their original connections (called synapses). These synapses in cell culture are ideal for analyses of the mechanisms of learning- related changes in the strength of the synapses. Recently, these researchers found that the synapses formed between Aplysia sensory and motor neurons in culture exhibit a long- term change similar to that which occurs at synapses in the vertebrate nervous system and which is thought to mediate associative learning. This synaptic change is known as "long-term potentiation" (LTP). This project will analyze the cellular mechanisms of LTP in the Aplysia synapses in cell culture and determine whether LTP of sensorimotor synapses mediates classical conditioning of Aplysia's withdrawal reflex in the whole animal. The hope is that an understanding of how the relatively simple nervous system of Aplysia mediates learning will help advance our understanding of how the far more complex nervous systems of mammals mediate more sophisticated forms of learning and memory.