Full text
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| Author(s): |
João Antonio Gimenes Júnior
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Biociências (IBIOC/SB) |
| Defense date: | 2008-07-14 |
| Examining board members: |
Gilberto Fernando Xavier;
Newton Sabino Canteras;
Andréa Maria Garrido dos Santos
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| Advisor: | Gilberto Fernando Xavier |
| Abstract | |
Human beings with damage to the mammillary bodies exhibit episodic memory disruption. This study investigated the potential participation of the medial mammillary nucleus (MM), a structure that receives a high density of melaninconcentrating hormone immunoreactive fibers (MCH) potentially involved in food intake, in processes of retrieval of memory about places where food was previously found, in rats. In addition, we investigated the possible involvement of this brain structure in both aversively motivated spatial memory, using the Morris´ water maze, and in anxiety, using the elevated plus maze. A behavioral task involving search for food guided by spatial memory, in rats, functionally analogous to the paired-associate learning task used for studying episodic memory in humans, was described. Rats trained to dig for food in an arena were exposed both to the pairing of a taste, peanut, with a specific place in the arena and, in a second trial, to the pairing of another taste, hazelnut, with another place in the arena. Immediately before a third trial, while still in the waiting box, the animals received a sample of either peanut or hazelnut. Then, they were inserted into the arena for a third trial and could search and dig for food buried in the place previously associated with the sample. The taste-place associations, sequence of associations, pairing places and sample offered before the third trial, were all varied quasi-randomly every day. The animals took extensive training to learn this task. It was found that the number of visits and the time spent in the place indicated by the sample were significantly greater as compared to the corresponding parameters of the place previously associated with a taste but not indicated by the sample, when the time interval between the second and the third trials was both 60 and 120 min; probe tests with no food in the arena in the third trial allowed to exclude the hypothesis that the rats were performing the task relying on olfactory cues, leading to the conclusion that the animals performed the task relying on the memory for the associations tastefood. Rats with selective damage to the MM, induced by topic, microiontophoretic, injections of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA), tested in the taste-place pairedassociate learning task, did not exhibit any disruption of performance relative to the controls. Additional analyses revealed that both MM and control subjects exhibited a reduction of food search during the post-operatory tests as compared to their own performance in pre-operatory tests; however, this reduction was stronger towards the place indicated by the sample, particularly for the animals subjected to MM damage. Even though not conclusive, these results may suggest that the MM might be involved in search for food guided by spatial memory. More studies would be required to evaluate this possibility. Further, these rats did not exhibit any disruption of performance in the reference memory test in the water maze and in the test/re-test elevated plus maze, suggesting that this type of damage does not disrupt aversively motivated spatial memory, open-space aversive memory and anxiety. (AU) | |