Please join us for the Behavioral Neuroscience Seminar Series with Dr. Janine Kwapis (Associate Professor of Biology, Pennsylvania State University)!
Title: Mechanisms underlying age-related impairments in memory updating
Abstract: Memory is actively modified in response to new information, a process that is impaired in old age. Because most laboratory paradigms focus on new memory formation, we know little about how existing memories are updated and even less about how these mechanisms are altered in the old brain. Here, I will present my lab’s research showing that age-related impairments in memory updating stem from both epigenetic and cellular dysregulation. Specifically, our work suggests that the repressive histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) may contribute to impaired memory updating in old age by altering neuronal co-allocation, the process of storing linked memories in overlapping neuronal ensembles. Accordingly, disrupting HDAC3 or restoring co-allocation in old mice can ameliorate age-related impairments in memory updating.