Behavioral tagging is a general mechanism of long-term memory formation

In daily life, memories are intertwined events. Little is known about the mechanisms involved in their interactions. Using two hippocampus-dependent (spatial object recognition and contextual fear conditioning) and one hippocampus-independent (conditioned taste aversion) learning tasks, we show that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2009-08, Vol.106 (34), p.14599-14604
Main Authors: Ballarini, Fabricio, Moncada, Diego, Martinez, Maria Cecilia, Alen, Nadia, Viola, Haydée
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal behavior
Animal memory
Animal training
Animals
Behavior, Animal - physiology
Biological Sciences
Brain
Chlorofluorocarbons
Conditioning (Psychology) - physiology
Discrimination Learning - physiology
Fear - psychology
Hippocampus
Hippocampus - physiology
Learning
Learning - physiology
Long term potentiation
Long-Term Potentiation - physiology
Male
Memory
Memory - physiology
Memory, Short-Term - physiology
Neocortex - physiology
Neuronal Plasticity - physiology
Protein synthesis
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Rats
Rats, Wistar
Rodents
Saccharin - chemistry
Sodium Chloride - chemistry
Spatial Behavior - physiology
Taste
Time Factors
Training
Vehicles
Water consumption
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Summary:In daily life, memories are intertwined events. Little is known about the mechanisms involved in their interactions. Using two hippocampus-dependent (spatial object recognition and contextual fear conditioning) and one hippocampus-independent (conditioned taste aversion) learning tasks, we show that in rats subjected to weak training protocols that induce solely short term memory (STM), long term memory (LTM) is promoted and formed only if training sessions took place in contingence with a novel, but not familiar, experience occurring during a critical time window around training. This process requires newly synthesized proteins induced by novelty and reveals a general mechanism of LTM formation that begins with the setting of a "learning tag" established by a weak training. These findings represent the first comprehensive set of evidences indicating the existence of a behavioral tagging process that in analogy to the synaptic tagging and capture process, need the creation of a transient, protein synthesis-independent, and input specific tag.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0907078106