美国洛克菲勒大学Priya Rajasethupathy研究组发现，前内侧丘脑对长期记忆的选择和稳定起作用。相关论文于2023年3月30日发表在《细胞》杂志上。
研究人员记录了小鼠在数周内执行记忆引导的虚拟现实任务时，连接海马和大脑皮层的回路中的大量神经活动。研究人员在前丘脑中发现了一个突出的、持续的记忆神经关联，对它的抑制大大破坏了记忆的巩固。更引人注目的是，增益放大增强了对其他未巩固的记忆的巩固。为了获得机制上的洞察力，研究人员开发了一种技术，在整个巩固过程中对海马、丘脑和皮层同时进行细胞分辨率成像。研究人员发现，虽然海马同样编码多种记忆，但前内侧丘脑优先编码突出的记忆，并逐渐增加与皮层的相关性，从而促进皮层组合的调整和同步。因此，研究人员确定了一个为记忆巩固把关的丘脑-皮层回路，并提出了一个适合于将海马记忆选择和稳定到长期皮层储存的机制。
据了解，最初在海马体形成的记忆在数周至数月内逐渐稳定到大脑皮层进行长期储存。这种大脑重组的机制细节仍不为人所知。
附：英文原文
Title: Anteromedial thalamus gates the selection and stabilization of long-term memories
Author: Andrew C. Toader, Josue M. Regalado, Yan Ran Li, Andrea Terceros, Nakul Yadav, Suraj Kumar, Sloane Satow, Florian Hollunder, Alessandra Bonito-Oliva, Priya Rajasethupathy
Issue&Volume: 2023/03/30
Abstract: Memories initially formed in hippocampus gradually stabilize to cortex over weeks-to-months for long-term storage. The mechanistic details of this brain re-organization remain poorly understood. We recorded bulk neural activity in circuits that link hippocampus and cortex as mice performed a memory-guided virtual-reality task over weeks. We identified a prominent and sustained neural correlate of memory in anterior thalamus, whose inhibition substantially disrupted memory consolidation. More strikingly, gain amplification enhanced consolidation of otherwise unconsolidated memories. To gain mechanistic insights, we developed a technology for simultaneous cellular-resolution imaging of hippocampus, thalamus, and cortex throughout consolidation. We found that whereas hippocampus equally encodes multiple memories, the anteromedial thalamus preferentially encodes salient memories, and gradually increases correlations with cortex to facilitate tuning and synchronization of cortical ensembles. We thus identify a thalamo-cortical circuit that gates memory consolidation and propose a mechanism suitable for the selection and stabilization of hippocampal memories into longer-term cortical storage.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.02.024
Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)00167-8