TY - JOUR
T1 - Upregulation of CREB-mediated transcription enhances both short- and long-term memory
AU - Suzuki, Akinobu
AU - Fukushima, Hotaka
AU - Mukawa, Takuya
AU - Toyoda, Hiroki
AU - Wu, Long Jun
AU - Zhao, Ming Gao
AU - Xu, Hui
AU - Shang, Yuze
AU - Endoh, Kengo
AU - Iwamoto, Taku
AU - Mamiya, Nori
AU - Okano, Emiko
AU - Hasegawa, Shunsuke
AU - Mercaldo, Valentina
AU - Zhang, Yue
AU - Maeda, Ryouta
AU - Ohta, Miho
AU - Josselyn, Sheena A.
AU - Zhuo, Min
AU - Kida, Satoshi
PY - 2011/6/15
Y1 - 2011/6/15
N2 - Unraveling the mechanisms by which the molecular manipulation of genes of interest enhances cognitive function is important to establish genetic therapies for cognitive disorders. Although CREB is thought to positively regulate formation of long-term memory (LTM), gain-of-function effects of CREB remain poorly understood, especially at the behavioral level. To address this, we generated four lines of transgenic mice expressing dominant active CREB mutants (CREB-Y134F or CREB-DIEDML) in the forebrain that exhibited moderate up regulation of CREB activity. These transgenic lines improved not only LTM but also long-lasting long-term potentiation in the CA1 area in the hippocampus. However, we also observed enhanced short-term memory (STM) in contextual fear-conditioning and social recognition tasks. Enhanced LTM and STM could bedissociated behaviorally in these four lines of transgenic mice, suggesting that the underlying mechanism for enhanced STM and LTM are distinct. LTM enhancement seems to be attributable to the improvement of memory consolidation by the up regulation of CREB transcriptional activity, whereas higher basal levels of BDNF, a CREB target gene, predicted enhanced shorter-term memory. The importance of BDNF in STM was verified by micro infusing BDNF or BDNF inhibitors into the hippocampus of wild-type or transgenic mice. Additionally, increasing BDNF further enhanced LTM in one of the lines of transgenic mice that displayed a normal BDNF level but enhanced LTM, suggesting that up regulation of BDNF and CREB activity cooperatively enhances LTM formation. Our findings suggest that CREB positively regulates memory consolidation and affects memory performance by regulating BDNF expression.
AB - Unraveling the mechanisms by which the molecular manipulation of genes of interest enhances cognitive function is important to establish genetic therapies for cognitive disorders. Although CREB is thought to positively regulate formation of long-term memory (LTM), gain-of-function effects of CREB remain poorly understood, especially at the behavioral level. To address this, we generated four lines of transgenic mice expressing dominant active CREB mutants (CREB-Y134F or CREB-DIEDML) in the forebrain that exhibited moderate up regulation of CREB activity. These transgenic lines improved not only LTM but also long-lasting long-term potentiation in the CA1 area in the hippocampus. However, we also observed enhanced short-term memory (STM) in contextual fear-conditioning and social recognition tasks. Enhanced LTM and STM could bedissociated behaviorally in these four lines of transgenic mice, suggesting that the underlying mechanism for enhanced STM and LTM are distinct. LTM enhancement seems to be attributable to the improvement of memory consolidation by the up regulation of CREB transcriptional activity, whereas higher basal levels of BDNF, a CREB target gene, predicted enhanced shorter-term memory. The importance of BDNF in STM was verified by micro infusing BDNF or BDNF inhibitors into the hippocampus of wild-type or transgenic mice. Additionally, increasing BDNF further enhanced LTM in one of the lines of transgenic mice that displayed a normal BDNF level but enhanced LTM, suggesting that up regulation of BDNF and CREB activity cooperatively enhances LTM formation. Our findings suggest that CREB positively regulates memory consolidation and affects memory performance by regulating BDNF expression.
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U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3257-10.2011
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3257-10.2011
M3 - Article
C2 - 21677163
AN - SCOPUS:79959306968
SN - 0270-6474
VL - 31
SP - 8786
EP - 8802
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 24
ER -