Incentive learning is the process via which animals update changes in the value of rewards. Current evidence suggests that, for food rewards in rats, this learning process involves the amygdala. However, it remains unclear whether this learning undergoes protein synthesis-dependent consolidation and "reconsolidation" processes in the lateral and basal nuclei of amygdala. Accordingly, we examine...

Rats can learn to forage among olfactory cues to associate one with reward in only 3 massed trials. The learning is achieved in less than 10 min and results in a memory trace lasting at least 1wk week. To study the neuro-anatomical circuits involved in the memory formation we used immunoreactivity to the immediate early gene c-fos as a marker for neuronal activity induced by the learning. The p...

The idea that an already consolidated memory can become destabilized after recall and requires a process of reconsolidation to maintain it for subsequent use has gained much credence over the past decade. Experimental studies in rodents have shown pharmacological, genetic, or injurious manipulation at the time of memory reactivation can disrupt the already consolidated memory. Despite the force...

BACKGROUND Traumatic memories have been resilient to therapeutic approaches targeting their permanent attenuation. One of the potentially promising pharmacological strategies under investigation is the search for safe reconsolidation blockers. However, preclinical studies focusing on this matter have scarcely addressed abnormal aversive memories and related outcomes. METHODS By mimicking the ...

Reactivation of memories may render them labile and subject to disruption by amnestic drugs thus reducing their impact on future behavior, but whether it is possible with well-established memories is not known. Here we examined the effect of two amnestic agents on reconsolidation of a conditioned place preference (CPP) for morphine when memory strength and memory age were varied. In a three-com...

During the past decade, a large body of research has shown that memory traces can become labile upon retrieval and must be restabilized. Critically, interrupting this reconsolidation process can abolish a previously stable memory. Although a large number of studies have demonstrated this reconsolidation associated amnesia in nonhuman animals, the evidence for its occurrence in humans is far les...

Following learning, a memory is fragile and undergoes a protein synthesis-dependent consolidation process in order to become stable. Established memories can again become transiently sensitive to disruption if reactivated and require another protein synthesis-dependent process, known as reconsolidation, in order to persist. Here, we show that, in the basolateral amygdala (BLA), protein synthesi...

Memory consolidation and reconsolidation have been shown to require new gene expression. N-glycosylation, one of the major post-translational modifications, is known to play essential or regulatory roles in protein function. A previous study suggested that N-glycosylation is required for the maintenance of long-term potentiation in hippocampal CA1 neurons. However, the role of de novo N-glycosy...

The intracellular mechanisms underlying memory reconsolidation critically involve cAMP signaling. These events were originally attributed to PKA activation by cAMP, but the identification of Exchange Protein Activated by cAMP (Epac), as a distinct mediator of cAMP signaling, suggests that cAMP-regulated processes that subserve memory reconsolidation are more complex. Here we investigated how ac...