The emotional tagging: stress and the promotion of durable memories

LOPES DA CUNHA, P; VILLAR ME; BALLARINI F; LOPEZ PASOS M; H. VIOLA

Mar del Plata

Congreso; SAN; 2015

Long-term memory (LTM) formation requires protein synthesis. We have demonstratedthat a weak learning task which only induces short-term memory (STM) can bestabilized into LTM if another closer and novel experience provides thenecessary proteins. It was postulated thatthese proteins could be capture at transient tagged sites induced by the weaklearning task by a process referred to as behavioral tagging. As it iswidely known that stress can modulate synaptic plasticity and enhance memoryconsolidation we decided toinvestigate whether acutestress could promote the formationof LTM from a weak training by providing the proteins necessary. For this purpose,rats were subject to a weak training (spatial object recognition-SOR) that onlyinduce STM and, at different times close to training, they were exposed tostressful event (elevated plataform?EP- for 30 min). We studied the dependence of this phenomenon on protein synthesis and also on glucocorticoids (GR) and mineralocorticoids receptors (MR)activity in the dorsal hippocampus.Finally, we present data aimed toinvestigate the role of stress induced by exams on the promotion of LTM in students