Abstract
Studies of patients and animals with brain lesions have implicated the hippocampal formation in spatial, declarative/relational and episodic types of memory. These and other types of memory consist of a series of interdependent but potentially dissociable memory processes—encoding, storage, consolidation and retrieval. To identify whether hippocampal activity contributes to these processes independently, we used a novel method of inactivating synaptic transmission using a water-soluble antagonist of AMPA/kainate glutamate receptors. Once calibrated using electrophysiological and two-deoxyglucose techniques in vivo, drug or vehicle was infused chronically or acutely into the dorsal hippocampus of rats at appropriate times during or after training in a water maze. Our findings indicate that hippocampal neural activity is necessary for both encoding and retrieval of spatial memory and for either trace consolidation or long-term storage.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by an MRC Programme Grant to R.G.M.M., by grants from CNRS, The Royal Society and Fondation Cino del Duca to J.M. and by a Wellcome Trust grant to J.McC. We are grateful to Darryl Schoepp of Lilly USA for supplying LY326325 and to Jane Knox and Patrick Spooner for technical support.
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Riedel, G., Micheau, J., Lam, A. et al. Reversible neural inactivation reveals hippocampal participation in several memory processes. Nat Neurosci 2, 898–905 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/13202
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/13202
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