Mechanisms of Hebbian Long-Term Potentiation and Learning

这个项目的目标是解释一种无脊椎动物——海蛞蝓的学习和记忆机制。介导某些简单的防御性退缩反射的感觉神经元和运动神经元可以从动物的神经系统中移除并在细胞培养中生长；在这里，它们会改变它们原来的连接（称为突触）。这些突触在细胞培养中是分析突触强度的学习相关变化机制的理想选择。最近，这些研究人员发现，在培养中，泛盲犬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突触发生的长期变化，并被认为是介导联想学习的。这种突触变化被称为“长期增强”（LTP）。本项目将在细胞培养中分析兔突触LTP的细胞机制，确定感觉运动突触LTP是否介导全动物兔戒断反射的经典条件反射。研究人员希望，对海兔相对简单的神经系统如何调节学习的理解，将有助于我们进一步了解哺乳动物更为复杂的神经系统如何调节更复杂的学习和记忆形式。

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.