Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Natalia Soldi | email: natalia.soldi@gmail.com
Natalia Soldi 1°, Sabrina Benas 2°, Emilio Kropff 2°, Alejandro F. Schinder 1°, Verónica C. Piatti 1°
1° Laboratorio de Plasticidad Neuronal – Fundación Instituto Leloir – Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires (IIBBA)- CONICET
2° Laboratorio de Fisiología y Algoritmos del Cerebro – Fundación Instituto Leloir – Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires (IIBBA)- CONICET
Animals need to remodel stored memories of their nest location and feeding sites due to continuous changes in the environment. The dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus is one of the most plastic brain regions because it is a niche of continuous adult neurogenesis. We used chemogenetic inhibition of DG circuits in mice to study their role for learning two alternate routes to the same reward position in a crossword maze. We found that the DG is critical for rapid learning of the second alternate path when the task requires high cognitive demand. The DG is known to play a critical role in the discrimination of similar spatial contexts, but it is also involved in improving performance in challenges requiring complex working memory. We therefore asked what function of the DG is most relevant for resolving the alternate routes to the same goal in the crossword maze. We hypothesize that it may be required for: 1) helping to reduce the interference of the memory trace of the first path when navigating the second one; or 2) it may enhance the capacity to hold complex memory sequences of the successful trajectories. To address these questions, we are currently building data matrices holding all the navigation data to extract relevant features of mice behaviors and choices to reach the reward. Preliminary analysis suggests that mice are able to simultaneously hold two sequences for the alternate paths for several minutes in the same environment, which supports the second hypothesis.