Dynamics of Hippocampal and Cortical Activation during Consolidation of a Nonspatial Memory

By Robert S. Ross, Howard Eichenbaum. 2006

159 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Observations of temporally graded retrograde amnesia after hippocampal damage suggest that the hippocampal region plays a critical, time-limited role in memory consolidation. However, these observations do not indicate where permanent memory is stored, nor do they clarify whether the hippocampus normally remains involved in a nonessential way. Evidence from multiple neural imaging studies indicate the time-limited role of the hippocampus and suggest that the anterior cingulate cortex is a critical storage site of different types of long-term memory. However, each of the previous studies examined spatial memory, leaving open the question of whether different cortical areas support long-term memory for other types of material. We characterized the course of involvement of cortical and hippocampal areas in animals trained in an explicitly nonspatial task. First, we confirmed previous findings that hippocampal damage produces temporally graded retrograde amnesia for the social transmission of a food preference (STFP) within our experimental protocol. Damage to the hippocampal region 1 d, but not 21 d, after training impaired subsequent recall of STFP. Then, we characterized the anatomical patterns of activation of the immediate early gene c-fos during retrieval of STFP immediately and 1, 2, and 21 d after training. The ventral subiculum was activated during retrieval shortly after learning, but the level of activation declined at successive times. In contrast, olfactory recipient regions including piriform, entorhinal, and orbitofrontal cortex showed the opposite pattern, increasingly greater activation in successively later retrieval tests. These findings support the view that different cortical networks support long-term memory for different types of information.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience

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Citations in the corpus

Structural Synaptic Plasticity Has High Memory Capacity and Can Explain Graded Amnesia, Catastrophic Forgetting, and the Spacing Effect (2014, background): “Although there are not yet final experimental answers [34,105], both predictions may be in conflict with evidence that novel memories are buffered and replayed by the hippocampus for a limited time only [34,38,39] and that, depending on the lesion size, graded amnesia can reach back to early childho”
The Formation of Recent and Remote Memory Is Associated with Time-Dependent Formation of Dendritic Spines in the Hippocampus and Anterior Cingulate Cortex (2009, background): “…storage per se or, as hypothesized (Simons and Spiers, 2003; Frankland and Bontempi, 2005), exerts an executive role in integrating and coordinating memories from distributed cortical modules processing selective aspects of the memory trace (Ross and Eichenbaum, 2006) remains to be determined.”
Social learning of fear (2007, background): “The hippocampus is important in socially mediated formation of food preference”
The neuroscience of remote memory. (2007, background): “Thus, for a task that relies on olfaction (social transmission of food preference), remote memory testing was associated with increased activity in piriform, entorhinal and orbitofrontal cortex, but not anterior cingulate cortex [85].”
Dentate gyrus-specific knockdown of adult neurogenesis impairs spatial and object recognition memory in adult rats. (2009, background): “This task is sensitive to hippocampal dysfunction (Winocur 1990; Bunsey and Eichenbaum 1995; Alvarez et al. 2001; Winocur et al. 2001; Clark et al. 2002; Ross and Eichenbaum 2006).”
The hippocampal indexing theory and episodic memory: Updating the index (2007, background): “However, there are other studies that suggest that older memories are more resistant to damage to the hippocampus than new memories ( Ross and Eichenbaum, 2006 ).”
The restless engram: consolidations never end. (2012, background): “However, an indispensable role of sleep in consolidation in all skill learning conditions and age groups was questioned (Karni et al., 1994; Karni, 1995; Roth et al., 2005; Ashtamker and Karni, 2013).”
Autism‐like behavioral phenotypes in BTBR T+tf/J mice (2008, methodology): “Social transmission of food preference (Ross & Eichenbaum 2006; Wrenn et al. 2003) was chosen to model components of social communication in mice.”