Synaptic and Circuit Mechanisms of Pheromonal Learning

描述（由申请人提供）：与他人的社会经历的记忆可能非常强大，尤其是那些在高度觉醒状态下产生的记忆，比如生殖接触。然而，大脑储存社会经验信息的方式仍然是个谜。我们的提议的主要目标是定义在成年费洛蒙印记过程中发生的神经变化，费洛蒙印记是啮齿动物交配引发的一种强有力的个体识别记忆形式。我们的目的是建立精确的突触机制和化学感觉记忆痕迹的电路水平的影响，灌输的性经验。我们首先使用遗传工具对交配期间被雄马费洛蒙激活的细胞进行荧光标记，允许在体外细胞电生理感官体验后对这些神经元进行针对性分析（目的1）。我们还开发了新的方法来可视化学习如何影响行为过程中的信息素处理电路，这将最终有助于阐明更广泛的社会行为的神经基础（目的2）。总之，这项工作架起了互补的细胞和网络尺度，为化学感觉学习的长期模型提供了新的观点。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Memories of social experiences with other individuals can be extremely powerful, especially those produced during heightened arousal states such as reproductive encounters. The way the brain stores information about social experience, however, remains enigmatic. The broad goal of our proposal is to define the neural changes that occur during adult pheromonal imprinting, a potent form of individual recognition memory triggered by mating in rodents. We aim to establish the precise synaptic mechanisms and circuit-level effects of the chemosensory memory trace instilled by sexual experience. We first use genetic tools for fluorescently tagging the cells activated by stud pheromones during mating, allowing targeted analysis of these neurons after sensory experience with ex vivo cellular electrophysiology (Aim 1). We also develop novel approaches for visualizing how learning affects pheromone processing circuits during behavior, which should ultimately help illuminate the neural underpinnings of a much wider range of social behaviors (Aim 2). Together, this work bridges complementary cellular and network scales to provide new views of a long- standing model of chemosensory learning.