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

MARTÍN KLAPPENBACH; CANDELA MEDINA ; RAMIRO FREUDENTHAL

Congreso; XXXIV Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2019

In the wild, animals are able to recognize and remember specific locations related tofood source and/or possible predation. In order to do so, long-term memories areformed, associating spatial cues with appetitive or aversive stimuli. Therefore, furtherunderstanding of spatial memories is a relevant question for behavioralneuroscience. With this in mind, we set to develop a novel paradigm for crabNeohelice granulata which is suitable for appetitive spatial conditioning. During thetraining session, animals are placed in a circular arena, which consists of plain whitefloor and walls, except for one striped quadrant. After habituation to the trainingcontext, crabs are appetitively conditioned through placing palatable reinforcementin the striped section of the arena. When tested, 24 hours after training, trainedanimals spend more time in the striped section of the arena, relative to the plainwhite one, compared to control animals. Importantly, we defined the parametricconditions for this novel paradigm (training session duration, unconditioned stimulusintensity, etc), as well as characterizing the resulting long-term memory (proteinsynthesis and NMDA-R dependance). In addition, we studied how the animal?smotivational state can modify its unconditioned behavior. Overall, this work providesevidence to establish the basis for a novel spatial paradigm in crab Neohelicegranulata