The Contribution of Dentate-Neural Networks to Memory Encoding

描述（由申请人提供）：几种神经精神疾病在海马和齿状回的输入层表现出广泛的病理。这些疾病的一组共同症状是与提出的齿状回功能一致的记忆损伤，例如情景记忆和工作记忆的缺陷。然而，我们对齿状回记忆编码背后的神经网络机制知之甚少。在Aim 1中，我们将通过记录清醒行为动物在执行依赖于齿状回的工作记忆任务时的齿状神经元群，阐明支持记忆编码的齿状回网络机制。在Aim 2中，我们将研究个别类别的齿状神经元对记忆编码所必需的神经网络计算的贡献，因为几种疾病不同地针对个别类别的神经元。这些目标的完成将为比较健康的网络过程提供框架，这些过程是记忆形成与疾病过程的基础，并可能导致治疗目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Several neuropsychiatric disorders show extensive pathology in the input layer to the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus. One set of symptoms common to these diseases is impairments in memory that are consistent with proposed dentate gyrus function, such as deficits in episodic memory and working memory. Little is known, however, about the neural network mechanisms that underlie dentate gyrus memory encoding. In Aim 1 we will elucidate the dentate gyrus network mechanisms that support memory encoding by recording from dentate neuronal populations in awake behaving animals while they perform a dentate gyrus dependent working-memory task. In Aim 2 we will look at the contribution of individual classes of dentate neurons to the neural network computations essential for memory encoding, as several diseases differentially target individual classes of neurons. Completion of these aims will provide the framework to compare healthy network processes that underlie memory formation to disease processes, and may lead to therapeutic targets. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The observation that the human memory system is the victim to many mental diseases suggests that there may be something about how this network functions normally that makes it susceptible to a wide array of disease. This project aims to uncover the network mechanisms that underlie memory formation, in the hope that advancing the knowledge of how the network functions normally will have implications for prevention and treatment of disease.