Chapter7.Biogenic amines and their role in aversive and appetitive learning.

KLAPPENBACH, MARTÍN; KACKZER LAURA; LOCATELLI FERNANDO

Neohelice granulata, a Model Species for Studies on Crustaceans, Volume II

Cambridge Scholar Publishing

Año: 2020; p. 139 - 150

Oneof the major goals in the study of the neural basis of learning and memory isto understand how the stimuli that constitute an experience are represented inthe brain to produce the changes that yield a new memory. With this aim inmind, studies that combine animal behavior with pharmacology, molecular biologyand physiology are carried out taking advantage of technical possibilitiesavailable in different model species, and also inspired by comparative andevolutionary interests. In this context, the crab Neohelice granulata has been established as a consolidatedinvertebrate model. The lack of an endothelial blood-brain barrier  and the fact that after systemic injection,drugs are distributed from the pericardial sac directly into neuropils of thecentral brain (Abbott,1970) confer Neohelice advantages for thepharmacological approach to the study of the neural basis of behavior (Maldonadoet al., 1997; Romano et al., 2006; Tomsic and Maldonado, 1990)Akey step in the establishment of Neoheliceas a model for the study of learning and memory has been the development of tworobust associative learning paradigms that exploit aspects of the crab´snatural behavior and habitat. The aversive learning paradigm is based on theexposure that crabs suffer in their natural habitat to aerial predators andthus, their readiness to elicit a conspicuous escape behavior uponpresentations of new visual danger stimuli (Fathalaet al., 2010a, 2010b). The appetitivelearning paradigm is based on the stereotyped foraging behavior in form ofexploratory excursions that crabs perform around their burrows until they findfood  (Dimant andMaldonado, 1992) . The possibility toelicit and quantify escape and exploratory behavior in controlled laboratoryconditions has given access to study mechanisms related to acquisition,formation and retrieval of aversive and appetitive contextual memories (table 1).