• Takaaki Ozawa, Kazuo Yamada, and Yukio Ichitani.
• Institute of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 305-8577, Ibaraki, Japan; Laboratory for Neural Circuitry of Memory, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Hirosawa, Wako 351-0198, Saitama, Japan.
• Behav. Brain Res. 2014 Apr 15; 263: 210-6.

AbstractIn order to investigate the role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the consolidation of spatial memory, we examined the relationship between the increase of hippocampal BDNF and the establishment of long-term spatial memory in spontaneous place recognition test in rats. The test consisted of a sample phase, delay interval, and a test phase, and preferred exploration of the object in a novel place compared with that in a familiar place was assessed in the test phase. In experiment 1, dorsal hippocampal administration of anisomycin, a protein synthesis inhibitor, before the sample phase (20 min) abolished the preference for the novel place object in the test phase conducted 24h later. This impairment was reversed by the dorsal hippocampal BDNF treatment immediately after the sample phase, although the BDNF treatment alone did not improve performance. In experiment 2, we used a shorter sample phase condition (5 min) in which control rats did not show any preference for the novel place object in the test phase after 24h delay, and found that BDNF treatment immediately after the sample phase caused rats' significant preference for it. Results suggest an important role of hippocampal BDNF as a product of protein synthesis that is required for the consolidation of spatial memory.Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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