The mechanisms for pattern completion and pattern separation are described in the context of a theory of hippocampal function in which the hippocampal CA3 system operates as a single attractor or autoassociation network to enable rapid, one-trial, associations between any spatial location (place in rodents, or spatial view in primates) and an object or reward, and to provide for completion of t...

Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disorder in the elderly. Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a relatively newly defined clinical entity that requires memory decline while activities of daily living remain intact. Most amnestic MCI patients develop Alzheimer's disease. Using an innovative surface-based hippocampal analytic technique we analysed the structural mag...

Cholecystokinin (CCK), a neuropeptide originally discovered in the gastrointestinal tract, is abundantly distributed in the mammalian brains including the hippocampus. Whereas CCK has been shown to increase glutamate concentration in the perfusate of hippocampal slices and in purified rat hippocampal synaptosomes, the cellular and molecular mechanisms whereby CCK modulates glutamatergic functio...

Objective: This study investigates the protective effect of butylphthalide on hippocampal mitochondria in epileptic rats. Methods: (1) A rat model of pentylenetetrazol (PTZ)-kindling was used. (2) Enzymatic activity of respiratory chain complexes II and IV was quantified in the hippocampus. (3) Mitochondrial morphology of the hippocampal CA3 region was observed by transmission electron microsco...

Little is known of the course and distribution of blood vessels supplying and draining the hippozampus. Such information could be of value in designing and evaluating lesion and ablation experiments and may reflect spatial properties of neurons. This study mapped the distribution of major arteries and veins of the rat hippocampal formation. Arteries and veins of adult female Wistar rats anesthe...

CA3-CA3 recurrent excitatory synapses are thought to play a key role in memory storage and pattern completion. Whether the plasticity properties of these synapses are consistent with their proposed network functions remains unclear. Here, we examine the properties of spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) at CA3-CA3 synapses. Low-frequency pairing of excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs)...

BACKGROUND Centella asiatica (CeA) is a creeper, growing in moist places in India and other Asian countries. Leaves of CeA are used for memory enhancement in the Ayurvedic system of medicine, an alternate system of medicine in India. In the present study, we investigated the role of CeA fresh leaf extract treatment on the dendritic morphology of hippocampal CA3 neurons, one of the regions conce...