CAREER: Roles of hippocampal/neostriatal systems in multiple forms of memory

Tulane University, New Orleans LA

Investigators

Abstract

LAY ABSTRACT Proposal # : IBN-0133734 PI Name: Paul Colombo This career development plan integrates teaching, mentoring, and research goals within the context of Tulane University's mission to promote neuroscience research and education. The educational goals include development of lecture and laboratory curricula for the new undergraduate neuroscience major, and recruitment of undergraduate students from groups traditionally underrepresented in the neurosciences to participate in research training internships during the summer months. The broad research goal of this project is to systematically define relationships between two brain regions known to support different types of memory among mammalian species: the neostriatum and the hippocampal formation. Although the roles of these two systems have been dissociated experimentally, the extent to which they function independently, cooperatively, competitively, or in temporal sequence is not known currently. Moreover, the time courses and cellular mechanisms of memory formation supported by these two systems are not well understood. Memory formation is accompanied by brain region-specific changes among neurons involved in information processing. Hypotheses that these changes are memory- and brain region-specific will be tested: neostriatal activation supports response, nonspatial, and procedural memory, whereas hippocampal activation supports place, spatial, and declarative memory. The current proposal employs two primary research strategies. The first strategy is to use behavioral manipulations to induce learning-related changes in cellular mechanisms of memory formation and to quantify those changes within the neostriatum and hippocampal formation. The second research strategy is to test the effects of highly selective protein inhibition on acquisition and retention of neostriatal- and hippocampal-dependent memory. By combining these research strategies, relationships between the hippocampal formation and neostriatum will be elucidated during multiple types of memory formation at the behavioral, brain systems, and neuronal levels of analyses. In addition to the research goals of this proposal, two additional goals both involve integration of research, teaching, and mentoring. The first of these goals is to increase opportunities for neuroscience education and research experiences for students from groups traditionally underrepresented in the neurosciences by mentoring students in the laboratory during the summer, and by outreach visits to colleges in the area. The second goal is to continue to develop the undergraduate major in Neuroscience at Tulane University.