Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
Institute for Neuroscience, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
Sci Rep. 2023 Feb 10;13(1):2429. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29609-6.
Learning can occur via direct experience or through observation of another individual (i.e., social learning). While research focused on understanding the neural mechanisms of direct learning is prevalent, less work has examined the brain circuitry mediating the acquisition and recall of socially acquired information. Here, we aimed to further elucidate the mechanisms underlying recall of socially acquired information by having male and female rats sequentially recall a socially transmitted food preference (STFP) and a fear association via fear conditioning by-proxy (FCbP). Brain tissue was processed for mRNA expression of the immediate early gene (IEG) Arc, which expresses in the nucleus following transcription before migrating to the cytoplasm over the next 25 min. Given this timeframe, we could identify whether Arc transcription was triggered by STFP recall, FCbP recall, or both. Contrary to past research, we found no differences in any Arc expression measures across a number of prefrontal regions and the ventral CA3 of the hippocampus between controls, demonstrators, and observers. We theorize that these results may indicate that relatively little Arc-dependent neural restructuring is taking place in the prefrontal cortices and ventral CA3 following recall of recently socially acquired information or directly acquired fear associations in these areas.
学习可以通过直接经验或观察另一个个体（即社会学习）来实现。虽然专注于理解直接学习的神经机制的研究很普遍，但对于介导社会获得信息的获取和回忆的大脑回路的研究较少。在这里，我们旨在通过让雄性和雌性大鼠通过恐惧条件反射代理（FCbP）依次回忆社会传递的食物偏好（STFP）和恐惧关联，进一步阐明回忆社会获得信息的机制。对信使 RNA（mRNA）表达的即时早期基因（IEG）Arc 进行脑组织处理，Arc 在转录后立即在核内表达，然后在接下来的 25 分钟内迁移到细胞质中。鉴于这个时间框架，我们可以确定 Arc 转录是由 STFP 回忆、FCbP 回忆还是两者共同触发的。与过去的研究相反，我们在控制组、示范组和观察组之间的多个前额叶区域和海马体腹侧 CA3 中没有发现任何 Arc 表达测量值的差异。我们推测，这些结果可能表明，在回忆最近通过社会获得的信息或在这些区域中直接获得的恐惧关联后，前额叶皮质和海马体腹侧 CA3 中发生的依赖于 Arc 的神经重构相对较少。
