| Budget Amount *help |
¥5,070,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,170,000)
Fiscal Year 2017: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2016: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,690,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥390,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
As we age, we suffer a decrease in memory, known as age-related memory impairment or AMI. Here we examined the caused of age-related impairments in long-term memory (LTM) in Drosophila. We found that normal LTM formation requires decreased neuronal activity during memory consolidation, a period of time after training during which protein synthesis occurs and short forms of memory are converted or consolidated into LTM. In particular, we found that inhibiting activity of dopaminergic neurons improves memory consolidation. Further, inhibiting activity of dopaminergic neurons improved LTM more in old flies compared to young flies. This indicated that one cause of age-related impairments in LTM is increased dopaminergic activity during consolidation in old flies. We identified a subset of dopaminergic neurons responsible for age-related impairments in LTM, and have evidence showing that activity of these neurons increases with age.
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