In Vivo Functional Bioluminescence Brain Imaging Highlights Learning and Memory Process

Material below summarizes the article PKA and cAMP/CNG Channels Independently Regulate the Cholinergic Ca²⁺-Response of Drosophila Mushroom Body Neurons, published on April 8, 2015, in eNeuro and authored by Pierre Pavot, Elena Carbognin, and Jean-René Martin.

As neuroscientists, we try to understand how billions of neurons work together to perform either simple daily tasks, such as coordinated walking, or more complex ones, such as learning and memory. How are the multiple integrated functions — like playing the piano, which uses learning and memory — encoded in the brain? And how does that compare to the multiple integrated functions, such as coordinated locomotor activity, or more sophisticated motor-based functions, such as playing piano — which refers in part to learning and memory — or yet to encoding other tasks, such as the memory of odor or even the learning of more intellectual and abstract things, such as poetry? In other words, where in the brain and at which levels (genetic, molecular, cellular, and/or network) do these given integrated functions take place?

About the Contributor

Jean-René Martin, PhD

Jean-René Martin is the research director of the functional brain imaging and behavior research group at the Neurosciences Institute Paris Saclay.