Updating long-term memory of time in an appetitive operant conditioning in rats: Triggering plasticity in amygdala nuclei through temporal error detection as a function of level of training

• Grant number: 23/18348-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2024
• End date: July 12, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Jose Lino Oliveira Bueno
• Grantee: Vitória Ferrari Shiroma
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/09191-8 - Updating long-term memory of time in an appetitive operant conditioning in rats: Triggering plasticity in amygdala nuclei through temporal error detection as a function of level of training, BE.EP.IC

Abstract

Theories of reinforcement learning indicate that prediction error, i.e., the discrepancy between the current and expected outcome, drives learning, inducing a memory updating. Pavlovian studies have shown that prediction error detection is a fundamental mechanism for triggering memory updates, with the temporal relationship between stimuli playing a critical role. Recent studies in demonstrated that a negative prediction error, but not a positive one, resulted in the update of long-term memory of time. These differential results may be related to the experimental conditions, which may control the formation and updating of memory depending on precise parameters (i.e., associative strength, valence). Memory characteristics are crucial conditions that limit the start of the consolidation process. For example, the acquisition of new learning is more intense for negative events than for positive ones.The ability of a new information to destabilize the memory could be related to the current associative strength of that memory. For instance, in appetitive operant conditioning, training is the phase in which the memory trace encoding the lever-reinforcement association and all reward-related information is formed, stabilized, recalled, and re-established during consecutive sessions. The duration of this phase can vary depending on the strength of the desired memory: a long training will result in a stronger and better learned memory, while a short training will result in a weaker memory. This project aims to explore whether the negative and positive temporal prediction error, in an operant conditioning, generates a symmetric or asymmetric update of the temporal expectancy in long-term memory, depending on the amount of training, establishing a paradigm to evaluate behavioral and neural correlates of instrumental memory consolidation and/or reconsolidation.