Associative conditioning of single sensory neurons suggests a cellular mechanism for learning.
A cellular analog of associative learning has been demonstrated in individual sensory neurons of the tail withdrawal reflex of Aplysia. Sensory cells activated by intracellular current injection shortly before a sensitizing shock to the animal's tail display significantly more facilitation of their monosynaptic connections to a tail motor neuron than cells trained either with intracellular stimulation unpaired to tail shock or with tail shock alone. This associative effect is acquired rapidly and is expressed as a temporally specific amplification of heterosynaptic facilitation. The results suggest that activity-dependent neuromodulation may be a mechanism underlying associative information storage and point to aspects of subcellular processes that might be involved in the formation of neural associations.
D000818:Animals; D001048:Aplysia; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D002118:Calcium / Q000502:physiology; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D012018:Reflex; D009435:Synaptic Transmission
D002118:Calcium