Some studies on olfactory conditioning in rodents have shown that long term memory of the conditioned odor depends on neurogenesis, while other studies did not detect such a dependence on neurogenesis. In their paper entitled „Involvement of Newborn Neurons in Olfactory Associative Learning? The Operant or Non-operant Component of the Task Makes All the Difference“, […]
Monatsarchiv für March 2012
Coincident firing of neurons can specify a synapse for later modulation
Yet another fascinating Nature article from the research group around Gilles Laurent. This article is built around the mechanisms underlying associative learning and plasticity in the mushroom bodies in insects. The area is known to be crucial for associative learning of odors and contains up to hundreds of thousands of neurons called Kenyon cells. Here […]
Methylphenidate enhances extinction of contextual fear
Posted on behalf of Neloy Kumar Chakroborty Summary: Prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known to be an important area regulating the extinction of fear. Psychostimulants that can increase the extracellular levels of dopamine (DA) in the PFC were reported to be involved in the fear extinction, although the reports were dilemmatic. Methylphenidate hydrochloride (MPH) or Ritalin […]
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