恐怖記憶形成に関与するシナプスの検出法の開発

• Published in: 日本薬理学会年会要旨集 p. 2-B-P-151
• Main Authors: 大久保, 洋平, 並木, 繁行, 廣瀬, 謙造, 大西, 泰地, 坂本, 寛和
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: 公益社団法人 日本薬理学会 2022
• Subjects: memory; synapse
• ISSN: 2435-4953
• DOI: 10.1254/jpssuppl.96.0_2-B-P-151

In the auditory cued fear conditioning, memories are stored in synapses between engram neurons, which increased activity during the memory formation. Although molecular imaging of memory-related synapses contributes to deciphering the molecular basis of memory, there is no established method for visualizing them. In this study, we developed a method to selectively visualize synapses between engram neurons, using the c-fos promoter-driven Tet-On system. Tag-fused synaptophysin (tagSyp) and FingR.PSD95 were expressed in presynaptic auditory cortex neurons and postsynaptic lateral amygdala neurons, respectively, in an activity-dependent manner. We found that the number of synapses positive for both tagSyp and FingR.PSD95 in the lateral amygdala was 15-fold higher in mice with cued fear conditioning than in control mice. Thus, we concluded that synapses both positive for tagSyp and FingR.PSD95 correspond to memory-related synapses. Furthermore, combining this method with immunohistochemistry, we found greater amounts of several kinds of synaptic molecules accumulate in memory-related synapses compared to other　synapses. It is expected that our method enables comprehensive analysis of molecular changes in synapses induced by fear memory formation.