Synaptic cooperation and competition are important components of synaptic plasticity that tune synapses for the formation of associative long-term plasticity, a cellular correlate of associative long-term memory. We have recently reported that coincidental activation of weak synapses within the vicinity of potentiated synapses will alter the cooperative state of synapses to a competitive state ...

Previous studies in slices have shown that low-frequency stimulation at 5 Hz, i.e., theta pulse stimulation (TPS), completely reverses long-term potentiation (LTP) in area CA1 when delivered within 1-2 min after induction but produces progressively less depotentiation at longer delays, until it has no longer any impact at 30 min after induction. The present study examined whether LTP in the fre...

Long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus is a long-lasting enhancement of synaptic efficacy produced by a brief, high frequency repetitive stimulation of afferents. LTP has generated a great deal of interest as a candidate mechanism in learning and memory. A recent in vivo study has shown that depletion of norepinephrine (NE) or serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) reduced LTP in the de...

Long-term potentiation (LTP) in hippocampus has been proposed to result from a tonic activation of protein kinase C. This hypothesis predicts that stimulation of the kinase would produce a smaller change in response size on potentiated versus control pathways and, conversely, that inhibition of the kinase would reduce potentiated inputs to a greater degree than control responses. We tested thes...

Objectives Cholecystokinin (CCK) has been proposed as a mediator in stress. However, it is still not fully documented what are its effects. We aimed to evaluate the effects of systemic administration of CCK exactly before induction of stress on spatial memory and synaptic plasticity at CA1 in rats. Materials and Methods Male Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups: the control, the control-CCK...

We investigated the effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on long-term potentiation (LTP) in the rat hippocampus. Rats were magnetically stimulated at a rate of 1000 pulses/day for 7 days by a round coil, in which the peak magnetic fields at the center of the coil were 0.75 and 1.00 T. LTP enhancement was observed only in the 0.75-T rTMS group, while no change was observ...

In the past decades, the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying memory consolidation, reconsolidation, and extinction have been well characterized. However, the neurobiological underpinnings of forgetting processes remain to be elucidated. Here we used behavioral, pharmacological and electrophysiological approaches to explore mechanisms controlling forgetting. We found that post-acquisiti...

In cultures of dissociated rat hippocampal neurons, persistent potentiation and depression of glutamatergic synapses were induced by correlated spiking of presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons. The relative timing between the presynaptic and postsynaptic spiking determined the direction and the extent of synaptic changes. Repetitive postsynaptic spiking within a time window of 20 msec after pres...

Many studies have used "reverse" genetics to produce "knock-out" and transgenic mice to explore the roles of various molecules in long-term potentiation (LTP) and spatial memory. The existence of a variety of inbred strains of mice provides an additional way of exploring the genetic bases of learning and memory. We examined behavioral memory and LTP expression in area CA1 of hippocampal slices ...

Subregion-dependent differences in the role of the hippocampus in information processing exist. Recently, it has emerged that a special relationship exists between the expression of persistent forms of synaptic plasticity in hippocampal subregions and the encoding of different types of spatial information. Little is known about this type of information processing at CA3 synapses. We report that...