INNATE MEMORY - THE PLASTICITY OF INSTINCT
Abstract
How is long-term information stored in the brain in a quiescent and stable state? Neuronal and synaptic plasticity allows experience to modify behavior in an uncertain environment by forming memories that guide action. But memory is not the only kind of information stored in the brain – the other form is instinct. Instinctual behavior is dependent on the brain’s innately encoded, hardwired neural circuits. Activity dependent labelling is a genetic strategy for tagging neuronal ensembles believed to carry informational content, and can be applied to both memory engrams and instinct. Here we propose to apply this technology to investigate how instincts may change both in an organism’s lifetime, and across species evolution. We will focus on rodent threat responses to visual looming stimuli. We will develop a program that works from the hypothesis that instincts may be coded by analogous circuit mechanisms to long-term memories. We will characterize the updating, or ‘extinction,’ of instinctual representations in mice to investigate how innate priors may change when expectations are violated by experience. We will investigate how instinctual representations may become associated with specific contextual memory engrams. Finally we will investigate the evolutionary variation of visual looming response across Peromyscus (deer mice) species in order to understand how this instinct can adaptively change by evolutionary plasticity in response to environmental selective pressures. We will approach these three goals using integrative neuroscience methodologies including activity dependent gene labelling, optogenetics, and freely moving miniscope-based in vivo calcium imaging.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2021
- Source ID
- FA95502010316
Entities
People
- Tomás J Ryan
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Trinity College Dublin
- United States Air Force