Amygdala Mediated Enhancement of Object Recognition Memory in the Hippocampus

描述（由申请人提供）：大量文献表明情绪调节记忆。适度的情绪唤醒会增强记忆，但极端的情绪唤醒会损害记忆，并可能与创伤后应激障碍等临床疾病有关。大量研究表明，杏仁核是协调对情绪的认知和生理反应的关键枢纽，包括调节记忆的反应。从杏仁核基底核到海马体的投射部分负责增强海马体依赖性记忆，例如新物体识别。该项目将研究来自杏仁核的输入如何调节海马体中的神经元活动，以增强记忆。具体来说，将电刺激杏仁核基底核与海马体的神经记录相结合，以研究杏仁核投射到海马体如何增强海马体中的记忆表征。预期的结果将与记忆增强的潜在治疗策略有关，也与杏仁核-海马异常相互作用被认为普遍存在的疾病有关，包括创伤后应激障碍。拟议的研究项目也将作为申请人培训计划的框架，该计划是专门设计的，将杏仁核-海马体相互作用的基础研究与申请人成为一名专注于精神疾病的神经外科治疗的内科科学家的职业目标相结合。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An extensive body of literature indicates that emotion modulates memory. Moderate levels of emotional arousal enhance memory, but extreme levels of emotional arousal impair memory and might be related to clinical disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Numerous studies indicate that the amygdala is a crucial hub for coordinating both the cognitive and physiological responses to emotion, including the responses that modulate memory. Projections from the basal nucleus of the amygdala to the hippocampus are in part responsible for enhancing hippocampus dependent memory, such as novel object recognition. The project will address how the input from the amygdala modulates neuronal activity in the hippocampus in the service of enhancing memory. Specifically, electrical stimulation of the basal nucleus of the amygdala will be combined with neural recordings in the hippocampus in order to investigate how the amygdala projections to the hippocampus can enhance memory representations in the hippocampus. The expected outcomes will be relevant to potential therapeutic strategies for memory enhancement as well as to disorders in which abnormal amygdalo-hippocampal interactions are thought to be prevalent, including post-traumatic stress disorder. The proposed research project will also serve as a framework for the applicant's training plan, which was specifically designed to integrate basic research on amygdalo-hippocampal interactions with the applicant's career goal of becoming a physician-scientist whose focus will be neurosurgical treatments of psychiatric disorders.