Seminários em Neurociências

Quinta-feira 21/10/2010 16:00h Auditório do Centro de Pesquisa César Timo-Iaria

Role of dorsal hippocampus in the ”what”, “where” and “when” components of an episodic-like memory task in rats

Flávio Freitas Barbosa (UFRN / IINN-ELS)

Human episodic memory refers to the capability of recollecting a specific event (what), as well as when and where it occurred. There are many studies in non-human mammals describing the role of the hippocampus in the formation of episodic memories, but most of the protocols used in these studies do not involve at the same time the three aspects of episodic memory. Dere et al have developed a three-trial object exploration task in rodents that can simultaneously access what, when and where (Neurobiol Learn Mem 84:214, 2005). The goal of this study was to evaluate whether pharmacological inactivation of dentate gyrus/CA3c and CA1 would differently impair the acquisition of this object exploration task. Interestingly, DG/CA3 rats did not discriminate spatially the objects, but temporally only in the first minute of the session test. CA1 rats explored equally the objects, independently of the time window analyzed. To our knowledge this is the first study to evaluate the role of these hippocampal subregions in the acquisition of an episodic-like memory task. These results corroborate computational models, since DG/CA3c seems important in spatial pattern separation and CA1 are involved in the acquisition/ consolidation process of the different episodes.

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