A short-term memory trace persists for days in the mouse hippocampus

Maha E. Wally, Masanori Nomoto, Kareem Abdou, Emi Murayama, Kaoru Inokuchi*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Active recall of short-term memory (STM) is known to last for a few hours, but whether STM has long-term functions is unknown. Here we show that STM can be optogenetically retrieved at a time point during which natural recall is not possible, uncovering the long-term existence of an STM engram. Moreover, re-training within 3 days led to natural long-term recall, indicating facilitated consolidation. Inhibiting offline CA1 activity during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) activity, or protein synthesis after first exposure to the STM-forming event impaired the future re-exposure-facilitated consolidation, which highlights a role of protein synthesis, NMDAR and NREM sleep in the long-term storage of an STM trace. These results provide evidence that STM is not completely lost within hours and demonstrates a possible two-step STM consolidation, first long-term storage as a behaviorally inactive engram, then transformation into an active state by recurrence within 3 days.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1168
JournalCommunications Biology
Volume5
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022/12

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Medicine (miscellaneous)
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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