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Molecular neurobiology

Making memories stick?

Nature volume 391, pages 435–436 (1998)Cite this article

One goal of molecular neuroscience is to identify the molecules that mediate learning and memory, and, on page 455 of this issue, Grotewiel et al.1 describe a potential player in memory formation. The identification of this molecule — a member of the integrin family of cell-adhesion receptors — expands the study of learning from neurotransmission and signalling pathways within the neuron, to include the neuronal surface where adhesion molecules collaborate to mould the connections between cells.

The fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster learns to avoid odours that are paired with an electric shock using a region of the brain called the mushroom bodies. When the mushroom bodies are defective or absent, flies show normal sensitivity to odours and electric shock, but they fail to learn the association between the two stimuli2. Moreover, a number of genes implicated in olfactory learning are preferentially expressed in the mushroom bodies. These include several genes that are important for signalling through the second messenger cyclic AMP: dunce, which is a cAMP phosphodiesterase; rutabaga, a calcium-calmodulin-dependent adenylyl cyclase; and the catalytic subunit of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (ref. 3).

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Figure 1: One model for memory formation in the mushroom bodies.

References

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  1. the Department of Anatomy, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Francisco, 94143, California, USA

    Cori Bargmann

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  1. Cori Bargmann
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Bargmann, C. Making memories stick?. Nature 391, 435–436 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/35020

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