Lateral entorhinal cortex role in modulation of hippocampus LFP to bind discontiguous events

• Grant number: 14/12904-4
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2015
• Effective date (End): September 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal researcher: Marcelo Bussotti Reyes
• Grantee: Eliezyer Fermino de Oliveira
• Supervisor abroad: Clayton Thomas Dickson
• Home Institution: Centro de Matemática, Computação e Cognição (CMCC). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Alberta, Canada
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/13665-0 - Electrophysiological signatures of fear conditioning in the dorsal striatum, BP.IC

Abstract

Temporal processing is a crucial tool in organization of different events in memory systems. Evidences indicate hippocampal role in counting stimulus gap in a peak procedure paradigm. Recent electrophysiological studies show that hippocampal neurons respond selectively to gaps in stimuli of different durations. These cells were named time cells in reference to hippocampus place-cells and their similarities. Additionally, entorhinal cortex presents itself as an essential area in memory systems which hippocampus participate and it is play a role modulating hippocampus in trace conditioning retrieval. Electrophysiological data suggest that acquisition of fear conditioning under anesthesia in rats and other animals showed retrieval under anesthesia state in basolateral amygdala. Experiments in anesthetized animals are particularly interesting, due to the fact that provides higher quality electrophysiological recordings, eliminating motor activity-recording artifacts. Besides, this technique is important to study how do entorhinal cortex and hippocampus participate in timing process of trace conditioning without context and motor variables to interfere. The aims of this project are to: (1) identify hippocampal local field potential (LFP) state-changes in anesthetized animals in retrieval of trace conditioning and (2) study hippocampus modulation by entorhinal cortex during tasks involving time processing. In order to perform this, awake animals will be conditioned with two different cues, one of them paired with a footshock after a gap and a later one presented alone. Additionally, we will use a sham group, which do not receive footshock, to analyze differences in LFP. (AU)