Lateral Habenula Determines Long-Term Storage of Aversive Memories

JOAQUIN PIRIZ

Montpellier

Simposio; 12e Colloque Société des Neurosciences; 2015

Société des Neurosciences

The Lateral Habenula (LHb) encodes negative value signals. It has been shown recently that LHb activation is sufficient to induce aversive associative learning; however the key question about whether LHb activation is required for an aversive memory to be formed has not been addressed. We studied the function of the LHb in memory formation using the Inhibitory Avoidance task (IA).We found that LHb inactivation during IA training does not disrupt memory when assessed 24h after, but abolishes it 7 days later, indicating that LHb activity during memory acquisition is not necessary for memory formation, but regulates its temporal stability. Our results suggest that LHb inactivation modifies subjective perception of the training experience.