The hippocampus provides the brain's memory system with a subset of neurons holding a map-like representation of each environment experienced. We found in mice that optogenetic silencing those neurons active in an environment unmasked a subset of quiet neurons, enabling the emergence of an alternative map. When applied in a cocaine-paired environment, this intervention neutralized an otherwise long-lasting drug-place preference, showing that recoding a spatial memory engram can alleviate associated maladaptive behavior.
Journal article
2016-04-01T00:00:00+00:00
19
564 - 567
3
Action Potentials, Animals, Cocaine, Conditioning, Psychological, Hippocampus, Male, Memory, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Mice, Transgenic, Optogenetics