Learning induces long-term potentiation in the hippocampus.
Years of intensive investigation have yielded a sophisticated understanding of long-term potentiation (LTP) induced in hippocampal area CA1 by high-frequency stimulation (HFS). These efforts have been motivated by the belief that similar synaptic modifications occur during memory formation, but it has never been shown that learning actually induces LTP in CA1. We found that one-trial inhibitory avoidance learning in rats produced the same changes in hippocampal glutamate receptors as induction of LTP with HFS and caused a spatially restricted increase in the amplitude of evoked synaptic transmission in CA1 in vivo. Because the learning-induced synaptic potentiation occluded HFS-induced LTP, we conclude that inhibitory avoidance training induces LTP in CA1.
Whitlock
Jonathan R
JR
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Heynen
Arnold J
AJ
Shuler
Marshall G
MG
Bear
Mark F
MF
D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D010766:Phosphorylation; D010768:Phosphoserine / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D018091:Receptors, AMPA / Q000378:metabolism; D013569:Synapses / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D009435:Synaptic Transmission
D010768:Phosphoserine; D018091:Receptors, AMPA; C104722:glutamate receptor ionotropic, AMPA 2