Molecular mechanisms in different memory phases of Chasmagnathus.

ARTURO ROMANO,; FERNANDO LOCATELLI,; RAMIRO FREUDENTHAL,; EMILIANO MERLO,; DARIO LEMOS,; PABLO ARIEL,; NOEL FEDERMAN; MARIA SOL FUSTIÑANA

Biological Bulletin

Marine Biological Laboratory

Lugar: Wood Hole, MA, USA; Año: 2006 vol. 210 p. 280 - 288

0006-3185

Long-term memory consolidation requires the activation of several transduction pathways that lead to post-translational modifications of synaptic proteins and to gene expression regulation, both of which promote stabilization and reinforcement of the activated circuits. In search of the molecular mechanisms involved in such processes we used the context-signal associative learning paradigm of the crab Chasmagnathus.  In this model, we studied the role of some molecular mechanisms, namely cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA), extracellular-signal regulated kinase (ERK), the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kappaB) transcription factor and the role of synaptic proteins such as amyloid beta precursor protein, with the scope of describing key mechanisms involved in memory processing.  In this article we review the most salient results obtained over a decade of research in this memory model.