Facilitació de l'aprenentatge i de la memòria en rates: conducta, neuroanatomia i neurofisiologia

Our research teams has stablished behavioral models of memory and learning facilitation (two-way active avoidance) by means of post-training treatment with intracranial self-stimulation or the plarform method, in rats. Based on those models, we intend to identify the neural and hormonal substrate of those facilitatory processes. Our first experimental data suggest that the parafascicularis nucleus of thalamus and the hormone adrenaline might be involved in those processes. The research we would carry out is aimed: 1) to further investigate the role played by the parafascicularis and by adrenaline in the facilitatory models stablished by us; 2) to explore the involvement of other diencephalic and mesencephalic nuclei, suggested by the results obtained in our previous works (pretectal, habenular and precomissural), on the facilitatory processes, and 3) to develope new facilitatory processe