Consolidation and reconsolidation of contextual fear memory requires mammalian target of rapamycin-dependent translation in the dorsal hippocampus. Neuroscience 2011 May 19;182:98-104
Date
03/29/2011Pubmed ID
21439355Pubmed Central ID
PMC3087706DOI
10.1016/j.neuroscience.2011.03.023Scopus ID
2-s2.0-79955479386 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 92 CitationsAbstract
The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway is important for regulating protein translation. The present study characterized the role of mTOR-dependent translation in the dorsal hippocampus (DH) during the consolidation and reconsolidation of contextual fear memory. We first showed that fear conditioning resulted in increased phosphorylation of p70s6 kinase (p70s6K) in the DH and that infusion of the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin (RAP) into the DH immediately after training disrupted formation of long-term contextual fear memory. Additionally we showed that p70s6K was activated after retrieval of a previously stored fear memory, and inhibition of mTOR by DH infusion of RAP blocked the reconsolidation of contextual fear memory. Together these results demonstrate that within the DH translational control through the mTOR pathway is important for consolidation as well as the stability of fear memory after retrieval.
Author List
Gafford GM, Parsons RG, Helmstetter FJAuthor
Fred Helmstetter PhD Professor in the Psychology / Neuroscience department at University of Wisconsin - MilwaukeeMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AnimalsCA3 Region, Hippocampal
Fear
Learning
Male
Memory
Protein Biosynthesis
Rats
Rats, Long-Evans
TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases
