D-060 | Two critical time-points for memory impairment mediated by NF-kB inhibition with BAY 11-7082

Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Agustina Denise Robles | Email: agusd.robles@gmail.com

Agustina Robles^1°2°, Santiago D’hers^1°2°, Arturo Romano^1°2°

^1° Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
^2° CONICET. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias (IFIBYNE). Buenos Aires, Argentina

NF-κB is a highly conserved transcription factor associated with memory processes in both vertebrates and invertebrates. Previous studies in Neohelice granulata crabs have demonstrated that two waves of NF-κB activity, right after and 6 hours after training, are essential for long-term memory formation. While acute pharmacological inhibition immediately post-training has been shown to impair memory in the inhibitory avoidance task in mice, its effects during the second wave of activity and in the novel object recognition (NOR) task remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the effect of the NF-κB inhibitor BAY 11-7082 on memory consolidation using the NOR task in mice. Acute systemic administration of the drug immediately after training did not affect recognition memory, leading us to test localized injections into the dorsal hippocampus at different intervals post-training. We found that inhibition immediately and 6 hours after training, but not 3 hours after, resulted in memory deficits compared to vehicle-injected controls. These findings support the hypothesis that two critical waves of NF-κB activity are involved in memory consolidation. To confirm that these effects were due to NF-κB inhibition, we are performing immunofluorescence staining on brain tissue sections from the injected subjects and measuring NF-κB presence in the nucleus.