Skip Navigation


Cerebral Cortex Advance Access first published online on March 4, 2008
This version published online on March 6, 2008
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn026
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
bhn026v2    most recent
bhn026v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Schicknick, H.
Right arrow Articles by Tischmeyer, W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Schicknick, H.
Right arrow Articles by Tischmeyer, W.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2008 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Dopaminergic Modulation of Auditory Cortex-Dependent Memory Consolidation through mTOR

Horst Schicknick1, Björn H. Schott1,2, Eike Budinger1,2, Karl-Heinz Smalla1, Anett Riedel3, Constanze I. Seidenbecher1, Henning Scheich1, Eckart D. Gundelfinger1 and Wolfgang Tischmeyer1

1 Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, D-39118 Magdeburg, Germany, 2 Department of Neurology II, 3 Institute of Biology, Otto von Guericke University, D-39120 Magdeburg, Germany

Address correspondence to Wolfgang Tischmeyer, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Brenneckestr. 6, D-39118 Magdeburg, Germany. Email: tischmeyer{at}ifn-magdeburg.de.

Previous studies in the auditory cortex of Mongolian gerbils on discrimination learning of the direction of frequency-modulated tones (FMs) revealed that long-term memory formation involves activation of the dopaminergic system, activity of the protein kinase mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), and protein synthesis. This led to the hypothesis that the dopaminergic system might modulate memory formation via regulation of mTOR, which is implicated in translational control. Here, we report that the D1/D5 dopamine receptor agonist SKF-38393 substantially improved gerbils’ FM discrimination learning when administered systemically or locally into the auditory cortex shortly before, shortly after, or 1 day before conditioning. Although acquisition performance during initial training was normal, the discrimination of FMs was enhanced during retraining performed hours or days after agonist injection compared with vehicle-injected controls. The D1/D5 receptor antagonist SCH-23390, the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, and the protein synthesis blocker anisomycin suppressed this effect. By immunohistochemistry, D1 dopamine receptors were identified in the gerbil auditory cortex predominantly in the infragranular layers. Together, these findings suggest that in the gerbil auditory cortex dopaminergic inputs regulate mTOR-mediated, protein synthesis-dependent mechanisms, thus controlling for hours or days the consolidation of memory required for the discrimination of complex auditory stimuli.

Key Words: discrimination learning • mammalian target of rapamycin • neuromodulation • protein synthesis • SKF-38393


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.