ICLM Journal Club
Date: May 11th
Time: 09:30 am
Place : 2nd Floor Conference Room, Gonda building.
Contents
Title : "Conditional modulation of spike-timing- dependent plasticity for olfactory learning"
Speaker: David Glanzman
Summary:
Mushroom bodies are a well-known site for associative learning in insects. Yet the precise mechanisms that underlie plasticity there and ensure their specificity remain elusive. In locusts, the synapses between the intrinsic mushroom body neurons and their postsynaptic targets obey a Hebbian spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) rule. Although this property homeostatically regulates the timing of mushroom body output, its potential role in associative learning is unknown. Here we show in vivo that pre-post pairing causing STDP can, when followed by the local delivery of a reinforcement-mediating neuromodulator, specify the synapses that will undergo an associative change. At these synapses, and there only, the change is a transformation of the STDP rule itself. These results illustrate the multiple actions of STDP, including a role in associative learning, despite potential temporal dissociation between the pairings that specify synaptic modification and the delivery of reinforcement-mediating neuromodulator signals.
Relevant Reading Material:
Nature. 2012 Jan 25;482(7383):47-52. doi: 10.1038/nature10776. Conditional modulation of spike-timing-dependent plasticity for olfactory learning. Cassenaer S, Laurent G.
More information can be found under the Current_events. Please feel free to sign up for the vacant spots after logging in.
Introduction
The Integrative Center for Learning and Memory (ICLM) is a multidisciplinary center of UCLA labs devoted to understanding the neural basis of learning and memory and its disorders. This will require a unified approach across different levels of analysis, including;
1. Elucidating the molecular cellular and systems mechanisms that allow neurons and synapses to undergo the long-term changes that ultimately correspond to 'neural memories'.
2. Understanding how functional dynamics and computations emerge from complex circuits of neurons, and how plasticity governs these processes.
3. Describing the neural systems in which different forms of learning and memory take place, and how these systems interact to ultimately generate behavior and cognition.
History of ICLM
The Integrative Center for Learning and Memory formally LMP started in its current form in 1998, and has served as a platform for many interactions and collaborations within UCLA. The cornerstone of the group is the weekly ICLM Journal Club. For more than 10 years, graduate students, postdocs, principal investigators, and invited speakers have presented on topic ranging from the molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity, through computational models of learning, to behavior and cognition. Dean Buonomano oversees the ICLM with help of student/post doctoral organisers.
Current Organisers:
Thomas Rogerson and Justin Shobe (both from Silva Lab)
Past Organisers:
i) Anna Martyina (Aug 2004 - Jun 2008) (Silva Lab)
ii) Robert Brown (Aug 2008 - Jun 2009) (Balleine Lab)
iii) Balaji Jayaprakash (Aug 2008 - Nov 2011) (Silva Lab)
Wiki Newbies
Consult the User's Guide for information on using the wiki software.
