Morris Water Maze overtraining increases the density of thorny excrescences in the basal dendrites of CA3 pyramidal neurons.

Morris Water Maze overtraining increases the density of thorny excrescences in the basal dendrites of CA3 pyramidal neurons. Behav Brain Res. 2019 Nov 20;:112373 Authors: Gómez-Padilla E, Bello-Medina PC, León-Jacinto U, Orta-Salazar E, Quirarte GL, Ramírez-Amaya V, Prado-Alcalá RA, Díaz-Cintra S Abstract The hippocampus plays a fundamental role in spatial learning and memory. Dentate gyrus (DG) granular neurons project mainly to proximal apical dendrites of neurons in the CA3 stratum lucidum and also, to some extent, to the basal dendrites of CA3 pyramidal cells in the stratum oriens. The terminal specializations of DG neurons are the mossy fibers (MF), and these huge axon terminals show expansion in the CA3 stratum oriens after the animals undergo overtraining in the Morris Water Maze task (MWM). However, to our knowledge there are no reports regarding the possible changes in density of post-synaptic targets of these terminals in the basal dendrites of CA3 neurons after overtraining in the MWM. The purpose of this work was to study the density of thorny excrescences (TE) and other dendritic spine types (stubby, thin, and mushroom) in the CA3 stratum oriens in animals overtrained in the MWM for three consecutive days and in animals trained for only one day. Seven days after MWM training, the animals were sacrificed, and their brains removed and processed for rapid Golgi staining to visualize the different types of dendritic pro...
Source: Behavioural Brain Research - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Behav Brain Res Source Type: research