Suzuki Wendy A
Center for Neural Science, New York University, 4 Washington Place Room 809, New York, NY 10003, USA.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2007 Feb;1097:1-11. doi: 10.1196/annals.1379.007.
Both aging and Alzheimer's disease target the hippocampal formation and can result in mild to devastating memory impairment depending on the severity of the condition. Understanding the normal mnemonic functions of the hippocampus and related structures of the medial temporal lobe is the first step toward the development of diagnostics and treatments designed to ameliorate these potentially devastating age-related memory deficits. Here I describe findings from behavioral neurophysiological studies in which we have investigated the patterns of dynamic neural activity seen in the macaque monkey hippocampus during the acquisition of new associative memories. We report that hippocampal neurons signal the formation of new associations with dramatic changes in their firing rate. Because these learning-related signals can occur just before behavioral learning is expressed, this suggests that these signals play a role in driving the learning process. Implications of these findings for understanding the memory deficits associated with aging and Alzheimer's disease are discussed.
衰老和阿尔茨海默病均会影响海马结构，根据病情严重程度，可能导致轻度至严重的记忆障碍。了解海马体以及内侧颞叶相关结构的正常记忆功能，是开发旨在改善这些可能具有毁灭性的与年龄相关的记忆缺陷的诊断方法和治疗手段的第一步。在此，我将描述行为神经生理学研究的结果，在这些研究中，我们调查了猕猴海马体在获取新的联想记忆过程中动态神经活动的模式。我们报告称，海马神经元通过其放电率的显著变化来表明新联想的形成。由于这些与学习相关的信号可能在行为学习表现出来之前就已出现，这表明这些信号在驱动学习过程中发挥了作用。本文还讨论了这些发现对于理解与衰老和阿尔茨海默病相关的记忆缺陷的意义。
