Constitutive activation of CREB in mice enhances temporal association learning and increases hippocampal CA1 neuronal spine density and complexity.

ABSTRACT: Transcription factor CREB is believed to play essential roles in the formation of long-term memory (LTM), but not in learning and short-term memory (STM). Surprisingly, we previously showed that transgenic mice expressing a dominant active mutant of CREB (DIEDML) in the forebrain (DIEDML mice) demonstrated enhanced STM and LTM in hippocampal-dependent, rapid, one-trial learning tasks. Here we show that constitutive activation of CREB enhances hippocampal-dependent learning of temporal association in trace fear conditioning and delayed matching-to-place tasks. We then show that in DIEDML mice the apical tuft dendrites of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons, required for temporal association learning, display increased spine density, especially of thin spines and of Homer1-negative spines. In

SUBMITTER: Serita T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5307365 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature