2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Mechanisms of memory consolidation in sleep
| Project/Area Number |
26285161
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Partial Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Experimental psychology
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| Research Institution | University of Tsukuba |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
小川 園子 筑波大学, 人間系, 教授 (50396610)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
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| Keywords | sleep / memory / hippocampus / amygdala / fear conditioning / sharp wave ripples / PKA phosphorylation |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
In the proposed studies we tested whether various gene cascades (e.g., MAPK, PKA) are activated specifically in sleep for the consolidation of fear memory, along with the time-course of the activation. Of these, we found that there was an increase in PKA phosphorylation during sleep in the hippocampus of contextual fear conditioned animals, however, the results approached but were not statistically significant. We did not find a differential time-course of PKA activation at the 0-4h vs 4-8h time points. Inhibition of PKA in the dorsal hippocampus produced a disturbance in fear memory, while activation of PKA in sleep-deprived animals reversed the sleep-deprivation suppression of fear memory. We are currently testing whether sharp wave ripples (SPWr), which occur during learning and in sleep, modulate memory consolidation by their effects on PKA expression. We observed that eliminating SPWr suppressed PKA phosphorylation in the hippocampus and in turn disrupted long-term fear memory.
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| Free Research Field |
Behavioral Neuroscience
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