The evidence for hippocampal long-term potentiation as a basis of memory for simple tasks.
Long-term potentiation (LTP) is the enhancement of postsynaptic responses for hours, days or weeks following the brief repetitive afferent stimulation of presynaptic afferents. It has been proposed many times over the last 30 years to be the basis of long-term memory. Several recent findings finally supported this hypothesis: a) memory formation of one-trial avoidance learning depends on a series of molecular steps in the CA1 region of the hippocampus almost identical to those of LTP in the same region; b)hippocampal LTP in this region accompanies memory formation of that task and of another similar task. However, CA1 LTP and the accompanying memory processes can be dissociated, and in addition plastic events in several other brain regions(amygdala, entorhinal cortex, parietal cortex) are also necessary for memory formation of the one-trial task, and perhaps of many others.
Izquierdo
Iván
I
Centro de Memória, Instituto de Pesquisas Biomédicas, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. izquier@terra.com.br
Cammarota
Martín
M
Da  Silva
Weber C
WC
Bevilaqua
Lia R M
LR
Rossato
Janine I
JI
Bonini
Juliana S
JS
Mello
Pamela
P
Benetti
Fernando
F
Costa
Jaderson C
JC
Medina
Jorge H
JH
D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats