Aversive and appetitive memories compete during retrieval in the crab Neohelice

LOCATELLI FERNANDO; KLAPPEBACH MARTIN

Montevideo

Conferencia; International Conference for Neuroethology; 2016

Internationa Society for Neuroethology

Aversive and appetitive memories compete duringretrieval in the crab NeoheliceIn contrastto experimentally controlled situations, animals in nature might be exposed tocontradictory information. Situations or places might predict simultaneous desiredand undesired 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 to explore learning after simultaneousappetitive and aversive experiences associated to the same context. First, wefound that two parallel memory traces are formed after simultaneous appetitiveand aversive training. Second, we found that the probabilities to express none,one or both learned behaviors depend on the balance between the relative strengthof the aversive and appetitive unconditioned stimuli, thus revealing a mutualinterference under certain conditions. Finally, we found that the mentionedinterferences do not occur during learning or memory formation, rather duringmemory retrieval. These results suggest that both memories can be retrievedupon presentation of the conditioned stimulus, however the access of memory tobehavior might be modulated based on specific demands at the moment ofretrieval.