Aversive and appetitive memories are simultaneously formed after a single learning session in the crab Neohelice

KLAPPEBACH MARTIN; FERNANDO LOCATELLI

Mar del PLata

Congreso; XXX Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias SAN 2015; 2015

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Aversive and appetitive memories are simultaneously formedafter a single learning session in the crab Neohelice Unlike experimentallycontrolled situations, animals in nature might be exposed to contradictoryinformation. Situation or places might simultaneously predict desired andundesired consequences. However, at some point the situation has to becategorized as appetitive or aversive, in order to decide if repeat or avoid itin the future. How contradictory information is integrated and how it affectslearning and memory has not been yet extensively studied. In the present workwe took advantage of the well described aversive and appetitive learningparadigms in the crab Neohelice toexplore learning after simultaneous appetitive and aversive experiencesassociated to the same context. First, we found that two parallel memory tracesare formed after simultaneous appetitive and aversive training. Second, we foundthat the probabilities to express no, one or both learned behaviors depend onthe balance between the relative strength of the aversive and appetitiveunconditioned stimuli, thus revealing a mutual interference under certainconditions. Finally, we found that the mentioned interferences do not occurduring learning or memory formation, rather during memory retrieval. Theseresults suggest that both memories could be actually available to be retrievedupon presentation of the conditioned stimulus, but the access of memory tobehavior might be modulated based on specific demands at the moment ofretrieval.