Regional synapse gain and loss accompany memory formation in larval zebrafish
William P. Dempsey, Zhuowei Du, Anna Nadtochiy, Colton D. Smith, Karl Czajkowski, Andrey Andreev, Drew N. Robson, Jennifer Li, Serina Applebaum, Thai V. Truong, Carl Kesselman, Scott E. Fraser, Don B. Arnold
Abstract
57, 397-399 (2002)]. In zebrafish that formed memories, we saw a dramatic increase in the number of synapses in the ventrolateral pallium, which contains neurons active during memory formation and retrieval. Concurrently, synapse loss predominated in the dorsomedial pallium. Surprisingly, we did not observe significant changes in the intensity of synaptic labeling, a proxy for synaptic strength, with memory formation in any region of the pallium. Our results suggest that memory formation due to classical conditioning is associated with reciprocal changes in synapse numbers in the pallium.