LAY ABSTRACT Interaction between Multiple Memory Systems in the Mammalian Brain IBN9813587 The field of behavioral neuroscience has begun to appreciate that the control and direction of a presumably simple behavioral response may not be the result of a single psychological process, but may reflect the involvement of more than one such process and therefore, the involvement of more than one underlying neural system. When more than one neural system is involved in guiding and directing behavior on the basis of experience, there are three possible ways that these systems can logically interact during a learning situation: A) they may operate independently and simultaneously, in a parallel redundant fashion, B) one system may predominate over the other(s) to control behavior, or C) multiple systems may need to cooperate in order to solve a given task. The goal of the proposed experiments is to collect preliminary data on the neurochemical basis of these interactions in order to develop in vivo animal model systems for the complex cognitive control of behavior. The proposed preliminary research utilizes behavioral tasks that have been used previously with permanent and reversible lesion methodologies to focus on the second logical form of interaction, one neural system predominating over the other(s). To investigate the roles of specific neural structures in the functional and neurochemical relationships among multiple memory systems, the experiments employ two complementary techniques. The first is in vivo microdialysis coupled with high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) to measure neurotransmitter release in structures important for learning and memory (i.e., hippocampus and dorsal striatum) during ongoing learning and behavior. The second is site-specific direct brain injections to alter the activity in specific neurochemical systems during learning and behavior. The findings are anticipated to provide the basis for understanding the mechanisms und erlying the allocation of control over behavior by specific neural systems. The aim of future studies is to describe and categorize further the neuroanatomical and neurochemical bases of interactions among multiple memory systems. Greater understanding of these interactions is necessary to develop accurate models of the ongoing complex control and direction of behavior. Such refined models would be of value to other fields of inquiry ranging from the basic neurobiology and neuroethology to the design of complex computational neural networks.
