Role of Medial Prefrontal Cortex Serotonin 2A Receptors in the Control of Retrieval of Recognition Memory in Rats

PEDRO BEKINSCHTEIN; MARÍA RENNER; CAROLINA GONZÁLEZ; NOELIA WEISSTAUB

JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE

SOC NEUROSCIENCE

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2013 vol. 33 p. 15716 - 15725

0270-6474

Often, retrieval cues are not uniquely related to one specific memory, which could lead tomemory interference. Controlling interference is particularly important during episodicmemory retrieval or when remembering specific events in a spatio-temporal context.Despite a clear involvement of Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) in episodic memory in human studies,information regarding the mechanisms and neurotransmitter systems in PFC involved inmemory is scarce. Although the serotoninergic system has been linked to PFC functionalityand modulation, its role in memory processing is poorly understood. We hypothesized thatthe serotoninergic system in PFC, in particular the 5HT2A receptor could have a role in thecontrol of memory retrieval. In this work we used different versions of the objectrecognition task in rats to study the role of the serotoninergic modulation in the medial PFC(mPFC) in memory retrieval. We found that blockade of 5HT2A receptor in mPFC affectsretrieval of an object-in-context memory in a spontaneous novelty preference task, whilesparing single item recognition memory. We also determined that 5HT2A receptors in mPFCare required for hippocampal-mPFC interaction during retrieval of this type of memorysuggesting that the mPFC controls the expression of memory traces stored in thehippocampus biasing retrieval to the most relevant one.