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Science 14 December 1973:
Vol. 182. no. 4117, pp. 1158 - 1160
DOI: 10.1126/science.182.4117.1158
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Articles

Acquisition and Retention of Long-Term Habituation in Aplysia: Correlation of Behavioral and Cellular Processes

Thomas J. Carew 1 and Eric R. Kandel 1

1 Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Public Health Research Institute of the City of New York, and Departments of Physiology and Psychiatry, New York University Medical School, New York 10016

To examine the cellular mechanisms responsible for transition from a short-term to a long-term behavioral modification, a rapid training procedure was developed for producing long-term habituation of the defensive withdrawal of gill and siphon in Aplysia. Four ten-trial training sessions, with 1frac12-hour intersession intervals, produced habituation that was retained for more than 1 week. This 5-hour procedure could be applied to a test system in the isolated abdominal ganglion where the cellular changes accompanying the acquisition of long-term habituation can be examined. During acquisition, intracellular recordings were obtained from L7, a major gill and siphon motor neuron, and the pattern of stimulation used in the behavioral experiments was applied to an afferent nerve. Acquisition was associated with a progressive decrease in the complex excitatory synaptic potential produced in L7 by afferent nerve stimulation. When retention was tested 24 hours later, the synaptic decrement was still evident. Thus, a behaviorally meaningful stimulus sequence, consisting of only 40 patterned stimuli, leads to changes in synaptic effectiveness lasting one or more days in a neural pathway involved in short-term habituation of this reflex.


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