Impaired spatial learning after saturation of long-term potentiation

Science. 1998 Sep 25;281(5385):2038-42. doi: 10.1126/science.281.5385.2038.

Abstract

If information is stored as activity-driven increases in synaptic weights in the hippocampal formation, saturation of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) should impair learning. Here, rats in which one hippocampus had been lesioned were implanted with a multielectrode stimulating array across and into the angular bundle afferent to the other hippocampus. Repeated cross-bundle tetanization caused cumulative potentiation. Residual synaptic plasticity was assessed by tetanizing a naïve test electrode in the center of the bundle. Spatial learning was disrupted in animals with no residual LTP (<10 percent) but not in animals that were capable of further potentiation. Thus, saturation of hippocampal LTP impairs spatial learning.

Publication types

  • Comment
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Dentate Gyrus / physiology
  • Electric Stimulation
  • Electrodes, Implanted
  • Evoked Potentials
  • Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials
  • Hippocampus / physiology*
  • Long-Term Potentiation / physiology*
  • Male
  • Maze Learning / physiology*
  • Perforant Pathway
  • Rats
  • Synapses / physiology
  • Tetany