Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
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Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B, Biol. Sci. · Apr 2003
Historical ArticleLong-term potentiation and memory.
The discovery of long-term potentiation (LTP) transformed research on the neurobiology of learning and memory. This did not happen overnight, but the discovery of an experimentally demonstrable phenomenon reflecting activity-driven neuronal and synaptic plasticity changed discussions about what might underlie learning from speculation into something much more concrete. ⋯ The use of this task in turn provided key evidence that pharmacological interference with an LTP induction mechanism would also interfere with learning, a finding that was by no means a foregone conclusion. This reciprocal relationship between studies of LTP and the neurobiology of memory helped the physiological phenomenon to be recognized as a major discovery.