PET Metabolic Imaging of Time-Dependent Reorganization of Olfactory Cued Fear Memory Networks in Rats.

Memory consolidation involves reorganization at both the synaptic and system levels. The latter involves gradual reorganization of the brain regions that support memory and has been mostly highlighted using hippocampal-dependent tasks. The standard memory consolidation model posits that the hippocampus becomes gradually less important over time in favor of neocortical regions.

CutLang v2: Advances in a Runtime-Interpreted Analysis Description Language for HEP Data.

We will present the latest developments in CutLang, the runtime interpreter of a recently-developed analysis description language (ADL) for collider data analysis. ADL is a domain-specific, declarative language that describes the contents of an analysis in a standard and unambiguous way, independent of any computing framework. In ADL, analyses are written in human-readable plain text files, separating object, variable and event selection definitions in blocks, with a syntax that includes mathematical and logical operations, comparison and optimisation operators, reducers, four-vector algebra and commonly used functions.

Activity in the rat olfactory cortex is correlated with behavioral response to odor: a microPET study.

How olfactory cortical areas interpret odor maps evoked in the olfactory bulb and translate odor information into behavioral responses is still largely unknown. Indeed, rat olfactory cortices encompass an extensive network located in the ventral part of the brain, thus complicating the use of invasive functional methods. In vivo imaging techniques that were previously developed for brain activation studies in humans have been adapted for use in rodents and facilitate the non-invasive mapping of the whole brain.

Memory of occasional events in rats: individual episodic memory profiles, flexibility, and neural substrate.

In search for the mechanisms underlying complex forms of human memory, such as episodic recollection, a primary challenge is to develop adequate animal models amenable to neurobiological investigation. Here, we proposed a novel framework and paradigm that provides means to quantitatively evaluate the ability of rats to form and recollect a combined knowledge of what happened, where it happened, and when or in which context it happened (referred to as episodic-like memory) after a few specific episodes in situations as close as possible to a paradigm we recently developed to study episodic memory in humans. In this task, rats have to remember two odor-drink associations (what happened) encountered in distinct locations (where it happened) within two different multisensory enriched environments (in which context/occasion it happened), each characterized by a particular combination of odors and places.