Presenter Information

Alexandra Brown, Colby CollegeFollow

Location

Diamond 122

Start Date

1-5-2014 9:00 AM

End Date

1-5-2014 10:30 AM

Project Type

Presentation

Description

Previous research confirms that medial temporal lobe structures make vital contributions to learning and memory. One structure in this region, the perirhinal cortex, appears to have a specialized role in supporting the capacity of rats to learn about and remember previously-encountered objects: damage to the perirhinal cortex interferes with rats abilities to remember familiar objects and to learn about new ones. Interestingly, rats that receiving extensive experiences with the same objects over the course of several weeks show preserved memory for those objects, though they still exhibit impaired learning of new objects. These findings suggest that information about the objects that the rats are overtrained is represented outside of the perirhinal cortex and thus is resistant to damage isolated there. Thus, memory is more resistant to damage and decay when it is represented in multiple way. We are interested in using these findings to pursue the hypothesis that the essential nutrient, choline, may exert its robust memory enhancing effects by facilitating the representation of information in multiple ways and across different brain structures. Thus, the aim of the current study is to seek evidence that choline supplemented rats with minimal object exposure will resemble control-fed rats with overexposure, displaying a resistance to perirhinal cortex damage. Rats were either overtrained (5-min/day for 30-d) or standard trained (5-min/day for 5-d) with pairs of identical objects and then given perirhinal cortex lesions or a sham surgery. Memory retention will be assessed in a 5-min test with one pre-training object and a novel object. A bias toward the novel object will be taken as evidence of memory for the previously viewed object. Rats will also be assessed on a new set of objects.

Faculty Sponsor

Martha Arterberry

Sponsoring Department

Colby College. Psychology Dept.

CLAS Field of Study

Social Sciences

Event Website

http://www.colby.edu/clas

ID

791

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May 1st, 9:00 AM May 1st, 10:30 AM

Does overtraining and choline supplementation make memories about objects resistant to perirhinal cortex damage?

Diamond 122

Previous research confirms that medial temporal lobe structures make vital contributions to learning and memory. One structure in this region, the perirhinal cortex, appears to have a specialized role in supporting the capacity of rats to learn about and remember previously-encountered objects: damage to the perirhinal cortex interferes with rats abilities to remember familiar objects and to learn about new ones. Interestingly, rats that receiving extensive experiences with the same objects over the course of several weeks show preserved memory for those objects, though they still exhibit impaired learning of new objects. These findings suggest that information about the objects that the rats are overtrained is represented outside of the perirhinal cortex and thus is resistant to damage isolated there. Thus, memory is more resistant to damage and decay when it is represented in multiple way. We are interested in using these findings to pursue the hypothesis that the essential nutrient, choline, may exert its robust memory enhancing effects by facilitating the representation of information in multiple ways and across different brain structures. Thus, the aim of the current study is to seek evidence that choline supplemented rats with minimal object exposure will resemble control-fed rats with overexposure, displaying a resistance to perirhinal cortex damage. Rats were either overtrained (5-min/day for 30-d) or standard trained (5-min/day for 5-d) with pairs of identical objects and then given perirhinal cortex lesions or a sham surgery. Memory retention will be assessed in a 5-min test with one pre-training object and a novel object. A bias toward the novel object will be taken as evidence of memory for the previously viewed object. Rats will also be assessed on a new set of objects.

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2014/program/14