March 24, 2016 | SharkAdmin Congratulations to Northwest Vista College Biology adjunct Jossina Gonzalez. She was recently published in “Frontiers in Neural Circuits,” with an articled titled, “Long-term Potentiation at Temporoammonic Path-CA1 Synapses in Freely Moving Rats.” [image1]Jossina gave a brief summary of the article: “Our capacity to encode and recall both facts and autobiographical memories are known to reside in a brain structure called the hippocampal formation. Sensory information is relayed to the hippocampal formation via two pathways of input that arise from a brain region known as the entorhinal cortex: the perforant pathway mediates the sequential activation of the dentate gyrus, areas CA3 and CA1 of the hippocampal formation, whereas the temporoammonic pathway mediates direct activation of area CA1. Recent studies indicate some aspects of hippocampal memory function involve temporoammonic path connections to area CA1. Our recent report in “Frontiers in Neural Circuits” sought to characterize a memory-attributing phenomenon known as long-term potentiation (LTP) at temporoammonic path connections to area CA1 in freely moving animals. Our findings show medial temporoammonic path responses in area CA1 can be selectively examined in behaving animals, and exhibit a long lasting form of potentiation that spans more than two weeks before decaying to baseline amplitudes. These studies provide the first description of LTP longevity for temporoammonic path input to area CA1 in freely moving animals. Our report expounds emerging evidence that temporoammonic pathway represents a physiologically relevant input system that displays robust synaptic plasticity.”
