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Zebrafish are a genetically tractable vertebrate that hold considerable promise for elucidating the molecular basis of behavior. Although numerous recent advances have been made in the ability to precisely manipulate the zebrafish genome, much less is known about many aspects of learning and memory in adult fish. Here, we describe the development of a contextual fear conditioning paradigm using an electric shock as the aversive stimulus. We find that contextual fear conditioning is modulated by shock intensity, prevented by an established amnestic agent (MK-801), lasts at least 14 d, and exhibits extinction. Furthermore, fish of various background strains (AB, Tu, and TL) are able to acquire fear conditioning, but differ in fear extinction rates. Taken together, we find that contextual fear conditioning in zebrafish shares many similarities with the widely used contextual fear conditioning paradigm in rodents. Combined with the amenability of genetic manipulation in zebrafish, we anticipate that our paradigm will prove to be a useful complementary system in which to examine the molecular basis of vertebrate learning and memory.

Increased training often results in stronger memories but the neural changes responsible for these stronger memories are poorly understood. It is proposed here that higher levels of training that result in stronger memories recruit additional cell signaling cascades. This study specifically examined if c-Jun N-terminal kinase 1 (JNK1) is involved in the formation of stronger fear conditioning memories. Wildtype (WT), JNK1 heterozygous (Het), and JNK1 knockout (KO) mice were fear conditioned with 1 trial, 2 trials, or 4 trials. All mice learned both contextual (hippocampus-dependent) and cued (hippocampus-independent) fear conditioning but for contextual fear conditioning only, the JNK1 KO mice did not show higher levels of learning with increased trials. That is, WT mice showed a significant linear increase in contextual fear conditioning as training trials increased from 1 to 2 to 4 trials whereas KO mice showed the same level of contextual fear conditioning as WT mice for 1 trial training but did not have increased levels of contextual fear conditioning with additional trials. These data suggest that JNK1 may not be critical for learning but when higher levels of hippocampus-dependent learning occur, JNK1 signaling is recruited and is necessary for stronger hippocampus-dependent memory formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nicotine is known to enhance long-term hippocampus dependent learning and memory in both rodents and humans via its activity at nicotinic acetylcholinergic receptors (nAChRs). However, the molecular basis for the nicotinic modulation of learning is incompletely understood. Both the mitogen activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and cAMP response element binding protein (CREB) are known to be integral to the consolidation of long-term memory and the disruption of MAPKs and CREB are known to abrogate some of the cognitive effects of nicotine. In addition, the acquisition of contextual fear conditioning in the presence of nicotine is associated with a β2-subunit containing nAChR-dependent increase in jnk1 (mapk8) transcription in the hippocampus. In the present study, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) was used to examine whether learning and nicotine interact to alter transcription factor binding or histone acetylation at the jnk1 promoter region. The acquisition of contextual fear conditioning in the presence of nicotine resulted in an increase in phosphorylated CREB (pCREB) binding to the jnk1 promoter in the hippocampus in a β2-subunit containing nAChR dependent manner, but had no effect on CREB binding; neither fear conditioning alone nor nicotine administration alone altered transcription factor binding to the jnk1 promoter. In addition, there were no changes in histone H3 or H4 acetylation at the jnk1 promoter following fear conditioning in the presence of nicotine. These results suggest that contextual fear learning and nicotine administration act synergistically to produce a unique pattern of protein activation and gene transcription in the hippocampus that is not individually generated by fear conditioning or nicotine administration alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nicotine has been found to enhance learning in a variety of tasks, including contextual fear conditioning. During contextual fear conditioning animals have to learn the context and associate the context with an unconditioned stimulus (footshock). As both of these types of learning co-occur during fear conditioning, it is not clear whether nicotine enhances one or both of these types of learning. To tease these two forms of learning apart, the authors made use of the context preexposure facilitation effect (CPFE). Acquisition of the CPFE requires that contextual and context-shock learning occurs on separate days, allowing for their individual manipulation. Nicotine (0.09 mg/kg) administered prior to contextual learning and retrieval enhanced the CPFE whereas administration prior to context-shock learning and retrieval had no effect. Thus, nicotine enhances contextual learning but not context-shock associative learning. Finally, the results are discussed in terms of a theory of how nicotine could alter hippocampal-cortical-amygdala interactions to facilitate contextual learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Hippocampus-dependent, event-related memories formed in early infancy in human and non-human animals are rapidly forgotten. Recently we found that high levels of hippocampal neurogenesis contribute to accelerated rates of forgetting during infancy. Here, we ask whether these memories formed in infancy are permanently erased (i.e., storage failure) or become progressively inaccessible with time (i.e., retrieval failure). To do this, we developed an optogenetic strategy that allowed us to permanently express channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) in neuronal ensembles that were activated during contextual fear encoding in infant mice. We then asked whether reactivation of ChR2-tagged ensembles in the dentate gyrus was sufficient for memory recovery in adulthood. We found that optogenetic stimulation of tagged dentate gyrus neurons recovered “lost” infant memories up to 3 months following training and that memory recovery was associated with broader reactivation of tagged hippocampal and cortical neuronal ensembles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Behavior depends on coordinated activity across multiple brain regions. Within such networks, highly connected hub regions are assumed to disproportionately influence behavioral output, although this hypothesis has not been systematically evaluated. Previously, by mapping brain-wide expression of the activity-regulated gene c-fos , we identified a network of brain regions co-activated by fear memory. To test the hypothesis that hub regions are more important for network function, here, we simulated node deletion in silico in this behaviorally defined functional network. Removal of high degree nodes produced the greatest network disruption (e.g., reduction in global efficiency). To test these predictions in vivo, we examined the impact of post-training chemogenetic silencing of different network nodes on fear memory consolidation. In a series of independent experiments encompassing 25% of network nodes (i.e., 21/84 brain regions), we found that node degree accurately predicted observed deficits in memory consolidation, with silencing of highly connected hubs producing the largest impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]