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Nonclassical Ion Channels in Learning and Memory
Published in Tian-Le Xu, Long-Jun Wu, Nonclassical Ion Channels in the Nervous System, 2021
Ze-Jie Lin, Xue Gu, Tian-Le Xu, Wei-Guang Li
The Morris water maze is one of the most widely used behavioral paradigms for studying the neurobiological mechanisms of spatial learning and memory. During this behavioral task, animals (usually rats or mice) are placed in a large circular pool of water and required to escape from water onto a hidden platform whose location can normally be identified only through spatial memory. There are no local cues indicating where the platform is located (Morris 1981). Conceptually, this task requires place cells, which are neurons in the hippocampus that recognize or represent points in space in the environment (O’Keefe 1976). Cellularly, long-term potentiation (LTP) of synaptic transmission in the hippocampal CA1 region serves as the primary experimental model for investigating the synaptic basis of spatial learning and memory (Bliss and Collingridge 1993; Tsien, Huerta, and Tonegawa 1996).
John O’Keefe (b. 1939)
Published in Andrew P. Wickens, Key Thinkers in Neuroscience, 2018
In 2014, John O’Keefe, along with May-Britt and Edvard Moser, were awarded the Nobel Prize “for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain”. In announcing the award, the Nobel Assembly noted that O’Keefe and his colleagues had not only solved a problem that had occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries but had also opened up a new paradigm for exploring many other cognitive processes including memory, thinking and planning. Among his many other awards, O’Keefe was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1992 and of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998. He was also elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. After spending so much of his career as a “bench experimenter”, O’Keefe was thrilled when offered the inaugural directorship of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at University College, London, in 2013. Although he would step down from the directorship in 2016, O’Keefe continues to be actively engaged there as a group leader, studying the neural correlates of cognition and emotion using the latest techniques in optical and electrophysiological recording. He is also optimistic that an understanding of the hippocampus will allow us to find out more about Alzheimer’s disease, and to this end, is intent on developing mouse models of place cell function to show how hippocampus physiology can become dysfunctional during disease progression. Sadly, May-Britt and Edvard Moser announced they would divorce in 2016.
Neuropsychology of Cognitive Aging in Rodents
Published in David R. Riddle, Brain Aging, 2007
Joshua S. Rodefer, Mark G. Baxter
Rosenzweig et al. [62] attempted to examine the flexibility of hippocampal spatial mapping in an elegant methodology by monitoring rats that were attending to a spatial reference that was in conflict with another frame of reference. When adult and aged rats attempted to find an unmarked goal, aged rats were impaired in their ability to find the unmarked goal and in their ability to realign the hippocampal map based on the changing contextual information. Wilson and colleagues [63] observed spatial performance of young and aged rats in the Morris water maze and then examined firing patterns of hippocampal place cells when animals were in familiar and novel environments, in an attempt to better understand how spatial representations distinguish familiar and altered environments. One consistent pattern to emerge from the data was that the (in)ability of the hippocampus to encode subtle differences in contextual environmental information may represent a major component of memory deficits [63]. Subsequently, Wilson and colleagues [64] expanded on this model and better characterized the ability of the hippocampal place cells to form new representation but also noted the delay in some spatial representations being anchored to external cues and landmarks. Taken in sum with previous work by Wilson’s colleagues and others [62], these descriptions and observation help converge seemingly divergent data into a more comprehensive model of hippocampal function and aging.
Effects of pulsed electromagnetic fields on tumor cell viability: a meta-analysis of in vitro randomized controlled experiments
Published in Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine, 2021
Guangzhou An, Meilun Shen, Juan Guo, Xia Miao, Yuntao Jing, Keying Zhang, Ling Guo, Junling Xing
Two research teams used a dummy or sham coil for control treatment, while others did not place cells in coils but maintained the same experimental conditions without PEMF exposure in the control group. One study described the controlled temperature and possible variation category, while another only reported the controlled temperature; the others lacked the corresponding information. None of the studies showed whether the exposure was blinded or randomized or whether the data measurements were randomized; however, the experimental methods used in the control group and PEMF exposure group were all the same. The results were consistent with other experimental indicators in four studies, and there were no other measured data in three studies (Figure 2).
Date seeds alleviate behavioural and neuronal complications of metabolic syndrome in rats
Published in Archives of Physiology and Biochemistry, 2023
Yosra Dallagi, Dalila Rahali, Morgane Perrotte, Houssem Dkhili, Asma Korsan, Michele Veronique El May, Saloua El Fazaa, Charles Ramassamy, Narges El Golli
Based on these findings and knowing that hippocampus is a crucial region for spatial learning and memory, in both human and rodents (Yassa et al.2011, Haberman et al.2013) and that hippocampal damage or activity alteration have a greater impact on reversal learning than on initial spatial learning (Pouzet et al.1999, Cirulli et al.2000, Cirulli et al.2004), we suggest that our observation in MS rats could be the result of hippocampal damages. Moreover, the place cells, responsible for spatial information processing, are principally located in the CA1 and CA3 hippocampal areas (O’keefe and Dostrovsky 1971, Poucet et al.1994).
Neuroanniversary 2021
Published in Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 2021
In 1971, American psychobiologist John O’Keefe (b. 1939), joined by a Masters in Science (MSc) student named Jonathan Dostrovsky, published his influential study, “The Hippocampus as a Spatial Map: Preliminary Evidence from Unit Activity in the Freely-Moving Rat,” in the journal Brain Research. The article described the discovery of cells in the CA1 field of the hippocampus coding for an animal’s location, which would later be named “place cells.” For this, O’Keefe was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2014, together with his coworkers Edvard Moser (b. 1962) and May-Britt Moser (b. 1963), both from Norway.