Brain Plasticity, Learning, and Memory

This book is the result of the contributions presented at a conference held from August 30 to September 1, 1984 at the Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France. This meeting was organized under the joint auspices of the European Brain and Behaviour Society (EBBS) and the Societe Fran~aise pour 1 'Etude du Comportement Animal (SFECA). The objective of this meeting was to bring together an international group of participants to evaluate and to report on recent research in three broad and overlapping fields within the general theme of the relationships between brain plasticity and learning and memory. These three fields are "developmental plasticity" "adaptive plasticity" and "restorative plas tici ty." Al though the boundaries between these fie Ids are a rna t ter of debate (see Introduction), they have been retained as the major sections of this volume, the arrangement of which roughly parallels that of the meeting. We believe and very much hope that the contents of this volume convey an internal consistency despite the diversity of the material presented.

Brain plasticity, learning and memory: Historical background and conceptual perspectives.- Developmental Plasticity: The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory during Ontogeny.- Alterations induced by early learning and early stimulation.- Imprinting and the neural basis of memory.- Morphological correlates of imprinting.- Noradrenaline and its possible role in imprinting.- The cell biological consequences of passive avoidance training in the chick.- Influence of developmental factors on imprinting.- Extraretinal factors controlling the development of neuronal selectivity.- Changes in the avian visual Wulst following early monocular deprivation.- Noradrenergic modulation of learning and brain plasticity.- Are Beta adrenoreceptors involved in visuocortical plasticity?.- Role of the locus coeruleus system in behavioral plasticity.- Adaptive Plasticity: The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory in Adult Organisms.- Biochemical and morphological alterations.- Role of serotonin and cAMP on short-term plastic changes underlying simple forms of learning process.- Protein kinase C and substrate protein Fl (47 kD, 4.5 pI): Relation to synaptic plasticity and dendritic spine growth.- Turnover of cerebral DNA in learning and sleep.- Hippocampal mossy fiber distribution and two-way avoidance learning in rats and mice.- Short-term and long-term potentiation.- What can the long-term potentiation procedure tell us about the neural mechanisms of learning and memory?.- What does the “LTP model of memory” model?.- Selective activation of cerebral structures.- The cholinergic septo-hippocampal pathway, learning and memory.- Sequential intervention of different limbic structures in memory processes.- Post-learning paradoxical sleep: A critical period when new memory is reactivated?.- Modularity of the prosencephalon: The vertical systemps.- Catecholaminergic modulation of learning and memory.- Selective attention, memory, and the locus coeruleus.- Noradrenaline and selective attention.- Modulation of spontaneous and sensory-evoked discharge of locus coeruleus neurons by behavioral state: Functional implications.- Mechanisms of action of noradrenaline in the brain.- Modulation of selective processes in learning by neocortical and limbic dopamine: Studies of behavioural strategies.- Neuroendocrine and peptidergic modulation of learning and memory.- Hormonal influences on memory: Interaction of central and peripheral systems.- Effects of central administration of corticosterone or adrenalectomy in mice on memory and evoked activity in the hippocampus.- Vasopressin, hippocampal excitability and paired-pulse potentiation.- Effects of lysine-vasopressin on spontaneous behavior and learning in appetitive tasks in the rat.- Oxytocin and vasopressin in memory and amnesia.- Cholecystokinin, learning and memory.- Possible involvement of neuroexcitatory amino acids and related peptides in learning and memory processes.- Restorative Plasticity: Brain Damage and Functional Recovery.- Early brain damage.- Functional deficits and anatomical sparing after prenatal brain damage in the rat.- Visual discrimination learning in rats following early life undernutrition: Recent findings and review.- Ontogeny of acquisition and retention of two-way active avoidance in the rat: Effects of early septal damage.- Dissociation of two behavioral functions in the monkey after early hippocampal ablations.- Brain damage in adult organisms.- Is the hippocampus really involved in memory?.- Neocortex, hippocampus and performance in Lashley’s maze III.- Behavioral correlates of plasticity in substantia nigra efferents.- Learning and memory performance before and after unilateral selective amygdalohippocampectomy.- Reading via a new functional pathway in an acquired dyslexia.- Aging.- Memory processes and aging in rodents.- Anatomical and behavioral studies following lesions on the basal magnocellular nucleus in the rat.- Modulation of functional recovery.- Early undernutrition and recovery from acute brain damage later in life.- Behavioural effects of preoperative and postoperative differential housing in rats with brain lesions: A review.- Temporally spaced lesions and recovery of function.- Neuropeptides and functional recovery after brain damage.- Gangliosides, Neuroplasticity, and behavioral recovery after brain damage.- Effects of nerve growth factor on cholinergic neurons of the rat forebrain.- Reorganization and restoration of central nervous connections after injury: A lesion and transplant study of the rat hippocampus.- Compensation of lesion-induced changes in cerebral metabolism and behaviour by striatal neural implants in a rat model of Huntington’s disease.- Functions of nucleus basalis magnocellularis input to the neocortex: A reconstitution analysis using intracerebral transplantation.- Appendix: Poster Abstracts.- Maternal corticoids during perinatal life influence hippocampus-dependent behavioral and endocrine responses in the adult rat.- Vertebrate memory models: Alterations in neuronal phosphoproteins.- Event-related potentials, learning and memory.- Mammillary body lesions in mice induce memory deficits which resemble those of the amnesic Korsakoff syndrome.- Non associative and associative learning in the Naples high (NHE) and low excitable (NLE) rat strains.- The spectrum of the monkey’s saccadic reaction times.- Testosterone and imprinting.- The maturation of eye movement in the cat.- 3H-muscimol binding to membranes of chick forebrain: Changes during development and after passive avoidance training.- Habituation of responses recorded in the reticular fomation: The possible involvement of opiates.- Intrastriatal grafting of dopamine-containing cell suspensions: Effects of mixing with target and non-target cells.- The role of the corpus callosum in visuomotor running patterns.- Evoked potential correlates of classical and instrumental conditioning.- Cerebral systems involved in a classical conditioning in rats.- The influence of electroconvulsive shock on learning and retention of memory in rat.- An interdisciplinary study of the effects of 6-OHDA lesions of the septum on cholinergic septo-hippocampal activity in inbred mouse strains.- Morphological changes during visual development in monkey and man.- Involvement of the entorhinal cortex in memory processes: Differentiation of lateral and medial parts.- Memory reorganization over time as revealed by interaction between type of pre-test cueing and length of retention interval.- Pavlovian lever-directed activity in rats with microcephaly due to gamma irradiation.- CNS Plasticity after early cerebellar hemispherectomy in the rat.- Restorative plasticity in the behaviour of the mutant mouse staggerer.- Activity of rat hippocampal neurones related to performance of a recognition memory task.- Influence on memory by a new nootropic compound.- Brain lesions, imprinting, and operant learning.- Effects of post-natal sensory stimulation on sleep patterns and cognitive processes in preterm infants.- Memory for words and faces ― A clinical study.- Ageing and cognitive performance in the natural environment.- Adaptation of oculomotor behaviour in reading: A study of some patients with visual field defects after brain damage.- Changes in hippocampal multiunit activity during conditioning: A neural correlate of the predictive value acquired by the CS?.- Paradoxical sleep augmentation following spatial strategy reversal in BALB/c mice.- Social constraints on learning in a group of baboons reared in an enclosure.- Comparison of dorsal and ventral hippocampus in BALB/c mice: Behavioral and anatomical studies.- A new brainstem transcommissural pathway: The bilateral pontocerebrellar system.- Influence of training strength on long-term retention of a conditioned saccharin aversion in rats.- Effects of early hyperthyroidism on shuttle box behavior and hippocampal mossy fiber distribution.- Correlation of pre- and postsynaptic activities: Its role in visual cortical plasticity.- Defeat-induced defense reactions and analgesia in mice: Effect of genotype.- Fetal brain tissue transplants promote behavioral recovery from bilateral lesions of the cerebral cortex in adult rats.- Morphological studies of plasticity in the chick forebrain following passive avoidance training.- Passive avoidance learning and memory-storage in decerebrate rats.- Lister and Wistar rats differ in the extent to which early life undernutrition affects later spatial discrimination learning.- Visual neglect in primates due to frontal eye field damage: Eye and head movement strategies during recovery.- The effects of early vs late cerebral lesions on learning and memory in children.- Possible memory enhancing effects of beta-carbolines.