Open AccessAn inhibitory hippocampal–thalamic pathway modulates remote memory retrieval
Author(s) -
Gisella Vetere,
Frances Xia,
Adam I. Ramsaran,
Lina M. Tran,
Sheena A. Josselyn,
Paul W. Frankland
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
nature neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 13.403
H-Index - 422
eISSN - 1546-1726
pISSN - 1097-6256
DOI - 10.1038/s41593-021-00819-3
Subject(s) - neuroscience , hippocampal formation , recall , memory consolidation , inhibitory postsynaptic potential , disengagement theory , hippocampus , psychology , thalamus , cognitive psychology , medicine , gerontology
Memories are supported by distributed hippocampal-thalamic-cortical networks, but the brain regions that contribute to network activity may vary with memory age. This process of reorganization is referred to as systems consolidation, and previous studies have examined the relationship between the activation of different hippocampal, thalamic, and cortical brain regions and memory age at the time of recall. While the activation of some brain regions increases with memory age, other regions become less active. In mice, here we show that the active disengagement of one such brain region, the anterodorsal thalamic nucleus, is necessary for recall at remote time-points and, in addition, which projection(s) mediate such inhibition. Specifically, we identified a sparse inhibitory projection from CA3 to the anterodorsal thalamic nucleus that becomes more active during systems consolidation, such that it is necessary for contextual fear memory retrieval at remote, but not recent, time-points post-learning.