Discovering Memory: Using Sea Slugs to Teach Learning and Memory.

Research on the sea slug has played a key role in unraveling the molecular mechanisms for learning and memory. In this system, synapses exhibiting long-term potentiation provide an ideal experimental platform for uncovering conserved principles. This review will discuss a 1997 study published in the journal which explored the means by which synapse-specific long-term potentiation occurs and its reliance on local protein synthesis. This study, conducted by Kelsey Martin and colleagues working in the Kandel laboratory, also explored synaptic capture: the mechanism by which a stimulated synapse recruits proteins from another, such that both undergo long-term potentiation. The authors discovered that synaptic capture does not require local protein synthesis, which led to further research on this mechanism. This study introduces undergraduates to a variety of research methods. Additionally, educators may use this paper as an introduction to the body of work produced by the Kandel laboratory and the field of learning and memory more generally. Advanced analyses of this research by upper level undergraduates may provide insights into competing theories for cellular mechanisms of long-term memory, presenting the opportunity to discuss disagreements within the scientific community.