© 2002 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
Behavioral, Cellular, and Molecular Analysis of Memory in Aplysia II: Long-Term Facilitation1
1 Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697-4550
| SYNOPSIS |
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Long-term facilitation (LTF) of Aplysia tail sensory neuronmotor neuron (SNMN) synapses provides a synaptic correlate of memory for long-term behavioral sensitization of the tail-siphon withdrawal reflex. LTF can be induced by repeated exposures of serotonin (5HT) in the isolated pleural-pedal ganglion preparation. In addition, we have shown previously (Sherff and Carew, 1999
| INTRODUCTION |
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Virtually all animals are endowed with the capacity to encode particular events, store that information, sometimes for extended periods, and then access that information at a later time. In the field of learning and memory, these three feats are described as the induction, storage and retrieval of memory. As described in the previous paper (Sutton and Carew, 2002
As was described in the previous chapter for memory and facilitation in the intermediate time domain in Aplysia, there are also behavioral and synaptic correlates in the long-term time domain. Long-term memory (LTM) and long-term facilitation (LTF), in addition to having similar temporal characteristics (lasting >24 hr), have similar induction requirements. Both need repeated tail shock (that give rise to 5HT release) and activation of protein kinase A (PKA).
Long-term facilitation (LTF, lasting >24 hr) of Aplysia tail sensory neuron-motor neuron (SN-MN) synapses has long been known to be induced by repeated pulses of serotonin (5HT; Montarolo et al., 1986
; Mauelshagen et al., 1996
; Martin et al., 1997
). Repeated 5HT also induces earlier phases of synaptic plasticity, namely, short-term facilitation (STF, lasts about 15 min), which is induced after only a single pulse of 5HT (Emptage and Carew, 1993
), and intermediate-term facilitation (ITF, lasts up to 90 min) that requires 5 pulses of 5HT (Mauelshagen et al., 1996
). Induction and/or expression of three temporal phases of facilitation all require activation of PKA (Castellucci et al., 1980
; Schacher et al., 1988
; Manseau et al., 1998
; Sutton and Carew, 2000
; review by Byrne and Kandel, 1996
), which would be consistent with (though not proof of) the possibility that these three phases, which require the same signaling pathway, might be induced in series. In this chapter, we describe our recent findings that there are multiple forms of LTF that differ in their induction requirements and in the combinations of phases of facilitation that they produce. We will discuss two important features of Aplysia synaptic plasticity that are suggested by these results: (1) that there is more than one molecular route to synaptic plasticity in the long-term time domain, and (2) that, under some circumstances, ITF and LTF can be induced independently of each other and are therefore likely induced in parallel.
The location of the SNs, MNs, and their connections in the Aplysia CNS are particularly advantageous for experimental studies of their specific roles in the induction of synaptic plasticity. The tail SN cell bodies are located in the pleural ganglion (Fig. 1A). Their axons travel the length of the pleural-pedal connective (about 3 mm) to the pedal ganglion, where they synapse with tail MNs. We now know that shock of the tail nerve (P9) causes release of 5HT in the vicinities of the tail SN cell bodies and the SN-MN synaptic neuropil (Marinesco and Carew, 2002
); thus we can substitute 5HT application for tail shock in the isolated ganglia preparation. The relatively long distance between the SN somata and their MN synapses allows us to construct a barrier between these two cellular compartments (Fig. 1A) and apply 5HT to either the SN somata (somatic compartment) or to the region of the SN-MN synapses (synaptic compartment). Using this preparation, we have found that LTF can be induced by different patterns of 5HT, such as 5HT exposure only to the SN soma or only to the synaptic region (Emptage and Carew, 1993
; Sherff and Carew, 2001
; and see also Clark and Kandel, 1993
). These results invite two questions: First, although 5HT exposure to only one of the synaptic compartments is sufficient to induce LTF, 5HT is released in both compartments during tail shock. Is there an interaction between the 5HT-activated processes induced in the two compartments? Second, do the different patterns of 5HT exposure induce LTF using the same signaling mechanisms, or is there more than one molecular pathway to LTF induction? The compartmental analysis we have developed (Sherff and Carew, 1999
) provides a means of directly addressing both of these questions.
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| INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SN CELL BODIES AND THEIR DISTAL MN SYNAPSES |
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We have recently examined the temporal and spatial constraints in the induction of long-term facilitation (LTF) in the intact CNS of Aplysia, focusing on interactions between two structurally remote cellular compartments of the CNS: (1) the cell bodies of tail SNs and their proximal synapses onto interneurons, located in the pleural ganglion (somatic compartment), and (2) their distal synapses onto tail MNs (23 mm away) in the pedal ganglion (Synaptic compartment) (Fig. 1A). For each compartment we found 5HT exposures that, when applied alone, were insufficient for the induction of LTF, but when they were applied together induced LTF (Sherff and Carew, 1999
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An interesting property of this form of LTF (which we call "coincident LTF") is that there is a limited time within which the two 5HT exposures must occur in order to induce LTF. If synaptic 5HT is presented as little as 15 min before somatic 5HT, LTF is significantly reduced, and if synaptic 5HT is presented 15 min after somatic 5HT, LTF is not induced at all (Fig. 2A; Sherff and Carew, 1999
| REPEATED 5HT AND COINCIDENT 5HT DIFFER IN THEIR ABILITY TO INDUCE ITF |
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Preliminary results indicate that repeated 5HT and coincident 5HT, in addition to differentially inducing LTF, also differ in their ability to induce ITF (expressed 3060 min after 5HT; Ghirardi et al., 1995
| PROTEIN AND RNA SYNTHESIS REQUIREMENTS DIFFER FOR LTF INDUCTION BY COINCIDENT 5HT AND REPEATED 5HT |
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Previous studies of Aplysia SN-MN synapses in cell culture show that induction of LTF by repeated somatic and synaptic 5HT requires translation of new protein and transcription of new mRNA (Montarolo et al., 1986
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Our results examining coincident LTF differ from those obtained in experiments using repeated pulses of 5HT at Aplysia SN-MN synapses in culture in that we found a postsynaptic protein synthesis component that contributes to coincident LTF induction, whereas in culture, gelonin only blocked LTF induction when injected into the SN, not the MN (Martin et al., 1997
We have also investigated the transcriptional requirement for LTF induction by coincident 5HT, using two different blockers of mRNA synthesis, actinomycin-D (preincubation for 1 hr prior to 5HT) and DRB (5,6-Dichloro-1-ß-D-ribofuranosylbenzimidazole; preincubation 1 hr prior to and during 5HT). We found that transcription is necessary in both somatic (presynaptic) and the synaptic regions (Fig. 3C; Sherff and Carew, 1999
) (recall that the synaptic compartment includes the MN cell body), indicating that new RNA synthesis is required in both SNs and MNs.
| SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS |
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In the current paper, and in the preceding companion paper, we have described two different temporal phases of synaptic facilitation: ITF and LTF. Both of these phases have behavioral correlates, namely, ITM and LTM for sensitization of the tail-siphon withdrawal reflex, which are similar in both time course and mechanism. Because an animal in its natural surroundings would likely benefit from modulation of its behavior (such as the T-SW reflex) in response to a wide range of patterns and modalities of stimulation, it is not surprising that we are able to induce synaptic changes associated with memory processes through a variety of different experimental procedures. The interesting feature of this system is that the different procedures are able to induce memories or phases of facilitation in the same temporal domains, although they require the activation of different molecular pathways. For example, Sutton and Carew (2000)
At the outset, we discussed the fact that memories might be formed by serial processes (Fig. 4A), parallel processes (Fig. 4B), or a combination of both. The ability of coincident somatic and synaptic 5HT exposure to induce LTF without first inducing ITF indicates that facilitation in these two time domains can be induced independently, that is, in parallel. Taken together, our results demonstrating: (1) that there are several molecular pathways that can be activated to give rise to a specific temporal phase of facilitation or memory, and (2) that the different temporal phases can be induced in parallel, lead us to suggest the model for memory formation in the T-SW reflex in Aplysia shown in Figure 4B. This model posits that different temporal domains of memory can be differentially and independently engaged by different experiences in the animal's environment, which could dramatically increase both the flexibility and complexity of memory processing. If this view proves correct, it will be of considerable interest to determine the adaptive significance of such a strategy for memory formation. We should point out that the fact that both ITF (Sutton and Carew, 2000
) and LTF (Bailey et al., 2000
) can be induced in an activity-dependent manner suggests the possibility that activity-dependent ITF and LTF could be serial processes; in which case, the different temporal memory phases in the Aplysia tail-siphon withdrawal reflex could be induced by either serial or parallel processes.
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One of the more powerful features of the Aplysia SN-MN synapse as a model system for the study of the cellular and molecular processes underlying memory formation and maintenance is that this system can provide important mechanistic clues at the molecular, cellular and behavioral levels. In the intermediate time domain, Sutton and Carew (2000)
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We thank Michael A. Sutton for comments on a previous draft. This work was supported by NIMH Grant #MH-14-1083 to T.J.C.
| FOOTNOTES |
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1 From the Symposium Recent Advances in Neurobiology presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, 26 January 2002, at Anaheim, California.
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