Long term memory of a spatial learning task in the crab Neohelice granulata

FREUDENTHAL, RAMIRO; MEDINA, CANDELA; KLAPPENBACH, MARTIN

Carlos Paz

Congreso; SAN 2019; 2019

SAN

In the wild, animals are able to recognize and remember specific locations related to food source and/or possible predation. In order to do so, long-term memories are formed, associating spatial cues with appetitive or aversive stimuli. Therefore, further understanding of spatial memories is a relevant question for behavioral neuroscience. With this in mind, we set to develop a novel paradigm for crab Neohelice granulata which is suitable for appetitive spatial conditioning. During the training session, animals are placed in a circular arena, which consists of plain white floor and walls, except for one striped quadrant. After habituation to the training context, crabs are appetitively conditioned through placing palatable reinforcement in the striped section of the arena. When tested, 24 hours after training, trained animals spend more time in the striped section of the arena, relative to the plain white one, compared to control animals. Importantly, we defined the parametric conditions for this novel paradigm (training session duration, unconditioned stimulus intensity, etc), as well as characterizing the resulting long-term memory (protein synthesis and NMDA-R dependance). In addition, we studied how the animal?s motivational state can modify its unconditioned behavior. Overall, this work provides evidence to establish the basis for a novel spatial paradigm in crab Neohelice granulata.