Want to learn? think again!

One of the best ways to improve new learning and increase memory strength is by reprocessing the recently acquired information, for example, by thinking of it again. Synaptic plasticity, the process by which neurons change the strength of their connections with each other, is fundamental for learning and memory formation. Yet, at present, it is unclear how reprocessing information drives synaptic plasticity to support memory improvement.

Anti-Hebbian plasticity in the motor cortex promotes defensive freezing.

Regional brain activity often decreases from baseline levels in response to external events, but how neurons develop such negative responses is unclear. To study this, we leveraged the negative response that develops in the primary motor cortex (M1) after classical fear learning. We trained mice with a fear conditioning paradigm while imaging their brains with standard two-photon microscopy.

Wide-band electrical and electromechanical properties of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and polyvinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene (PVDF-TrFE) piezoelectric films using electro-acoustic reflectometry.

Thin piezoelectric polymer films are used in increasingly more high frequency applications. However, they are not well characterized up to the gigahertz range. In this paper, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and polyvinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene (PVDF-TrFE) films are mechanically and electrically characterized using the electro-acoustic reflectometry (EAR) method from 20 MHz to 2 GHz.

Generalized extinction of fear memory depends on co-allocation of synaptic plasticity in dendrites.

Memories can be modified by new experience in a specific or generalized manner. Changes in synaptic connections are crucial for memory storage, but it remains unknown how synaptic changes associated with different memories are distributed within neuronal circuits and how such distributions affect specific or generalized modification by novel experience. Here we show that fear conditioning with two different auditory stimuli (CS) and footshocks (US) induces dendritic spine elimination mainly on different dendritic branches of layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the mouse motor cortex.

Sleep promotes the formation of dendritic filopodia and spines near learning-inactive existing spines.

Changes in synaptic connections are believed to underlie long-term memory storage. Previous studies have suggested that sleep is important for synapse formation after learning, but how sleep is involved in the process of synapse formation remains unclear. To address this question, we used transcranial two-photon microscopy to investigate the effect of postlearning sleep on the location of newly formed dendritic filopodia and spines of layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the primary motor cortex of adolescent mice.