{"title":"Implicit and explicit reversal of trained oculomotor movements","authors":"Mario Michiels , David Luque , Ignacio Obeso","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108114","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108114","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Habitual behavior is thought to emerge with extended training and reduced sensitivity to outcome devaluation. However, little is known about how habit-like oculomotor responses adapt when devaluation is implicit or embedded within a previously learned context. We examined this in a novel oculomotor learning task involving visual shape-reward associations with both standard and overtrained stimuli. Twenty-six participants completed a shape-color learning task while their eye movements were recorded using an eye-tracker system (1000 Hz). The task involved 11 blocks, including training, intra-block reversal (implicit stimulus-reward changes), and classical devaluation phases (explicitly instructed reward changes). Statistical analyses were performed using linear mixed-effects models on accuracy and response time (RT) measures. As expected, higher accuracy and faster responses for overtrained versus standard-trained stimuli were observed during training, confirming stronger learning. In the classical devaluation phase, overtrained stimuli elicited significantly more errors compared to standard-trained stimuli, relative to the performance in the training phase. This indicates stronger resistance to goal-directed updating. The effect was more pronounced during intra-block reversal of associations, where reward contingencies changed without warning. While RTs were not affected by classical devaluation, intra-block reversal significantly increased RTs for overtrained stimuli, relative to RTs in the training phase. This suggests a higher cognitive cost for overriding well-learned habitual responses when changes are unpredictable. These findings provide new evidence for the behavioral rigidity associated with overtraining of oculomotor behavior and suggest that unexpected outcome changes impose an additional switch cost on habitual oculomotor behavior.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"223 ","pages":"Article 108114"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145622905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sleep promotes illusory word compositions, a distinct form of false memory","authors":"Itamar Lerner, Sarah C. Hamm","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108129","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108129","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Extensive evidence supports the beneficial effects of sleep on memory and learning, including the consolidation and reorganization of memories and the extraction of regularities from encoded experiences. Nevertheless, some studies suggest that sleep may also increase false memories, potentially as a byproduct of regularities extraction. Physiologically, time-compressed memory replay in the hippocampus during non-rapid-eye-movement (nREM) sleep is believed to contribute to the consolidation process, although the functional significance of time compression remains elusive. Recently, we proposed that compressed replay might allow associating events that happened at disparate times, thus supporting the extraction of regularities with a temporal nature. This model predicted that sleep might also facilitate a distinct kind of false memories, in which two separate events occurring consecutively are encoded as a single composite event. Here, we tested this prediction by exposing male and female adults to separate word pairs (e.g., car, pet) that could form a new composite word if combined (carpet). We then tested their memory for composite words following a period of sleep or wake. Confirming our main prediction, we found that sleep actively facilitated false composite memories. Furthermore, EEG recordings indicated the involvement of nREM sleep in the process, albeit in a nuanced manner: While some slow-wave or spindle-related parameters predicted increase in false memories, others were associated with fewer false memories and a decline in veridical memories. The latter result resembles previous findings from non-composite false memory studies and could suggest a competitive mechanism between semantic and episodic consolidation during sleep.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"223 ","pages":"Article 108129"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145828204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reconceptualizing human fear memory through the defense cascade","authors":"Maria Alemany-González, Ai Koizumi","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108126","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108126","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Human fear memory and its associated pathologies are predominantly studied within fear conditioning frameworks. While this reductionist approach has provided valuable insights into the neural and behavioral mechanisms of fear memory, it inadequately captures the diverse dysfunctions in defense responses observed in post-traumatic disorders. These dysfunctions include maladaptive immobility and aberrant fight-or-flight reactions, contributing to substantial individual variability. Traditional paradigms in human studies typically present conditioned stimuli without accounting for the imminence or spatio-temporal proximity of the threat and rely on univariate physiological measures like skin conductance to quantify magnitudes of conditioned responses. Such methods fail to encompass the full range of qualitatively distinct defense behaviors. In contrast, models on defense mechanisms highlight the cascade of defense responses across the threat imminence continuum. This review explores emerging theoretical and methodological innovations that integrate these models to extend the fear memory framework in humans. Key advancements include the dynamic manipulation of threat imminence and the integration of whole-body movements to elicit and evaluate a wider spectrum of defense modes. These innovations offer a promising path for understanding how traumatic experiences disrupt the defense system and contribute to the development of heterogeneous pathological outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"223 ","pages":"Article 108126"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145757125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Meagan Turner , Olivia Ball , W.Keith Ray , Richard F. Helm , Timothy J. Jarome
{"title":"Reductions in protein degradation in the retrosplenial cortex regulate contextual fear memory formation in a sex-independent manner","authors":"Meagan Turner , Olivia Ball , W.Keith Ray , Richard F. Helm , Timothy J. Jarome","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108127","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108127","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The retrosplenial cortex (RSC), which serves as a hub to connect the hippocampus and amygdala with other cortical regions, has been shown to play a role in the formation of contextual fear memories. However, the molecular mechanisms by which the RSC forms memories and whether sex differences exist within these mechanisms remain largely unknown. Increases in ubiquitin–proteasome-mediated protein degradation have been shown to be sex-dependently involved in the formation of contextual fear memories in multiple brain regions, including the hippocampus and amygdala. To date, whether increases in protein degradation are needed in the RSC for memory formation in either sex has yet to be examined. Here, we found that proteasome function in the RSC decreases after contextual fear conditioning in both male and female rats. Consistent with this, increasing proteasome activity in the RSC via CRISPR-dCas9-mediated upregulation of <em>Psmd14</em> impaired contextual fear memory in a mixed sex cohort. Interestingly, proteomic analysis of degradation-specific lysine-48 (K48) polyubiquitination in the RSC of fear-conditioned rats showed largely distinct protein degradation targets and impacted pathways across the sexes. This suggests that despite the shared need for reductions in protein degradation, males and females are using this mechanism in different ways to form the same memory. Together, these data demonstrate that reductions in protein degradation in the RSC are critical for contextual fear memory formation in both males and females and indicate that the molecular changes in the RSC during memory formation may be distinct from those of other more commonly studied brain regions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"223 ","pages":"Article 108127"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145763354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Threat Acquisition and Extinction Differences Between Patients With Panic Disorder or Specific Phobia and Non-Clinical Controls: A Systematic Review","authors":"Kane Steggles, Matthew Garner, Jayne Morriss","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108125","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108125","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The study of threat conditioning and extinction processes in anxiety disorders (AD) may further our understanding of the genesis, maintenance, and treatment of these conditions. As it stands, there have been multiple systematic reviews carried out in this area. Patient-control differences in threat acquisition and extinction have been investigated in relation to ADs, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and social anxiety disorder (SAD). However, this remains to be investigated in either panic disorder (PD) or specific phobia (SP). In this paper, a narrative systematic review was carried out to collate and critically assess the literature investigating patient-control differences in threat acquisition, extinction, and extinction retention processes in relation to PD and SP separately. Specifically, across fMRI, EEG, EMG, SCR, and self-report. This resulted in the inclusion of 14 PD studies and 7 SP studies. Across PD studies, the review identified reliable evidence for lowered discrimination between conditioned threat and safety cues, and mixed evidence for increased responding to the threat cue, during acquisition in PD patients vs. non-anxious controls. Across SP studies, the review identified strong evidence for heightened discrimination between conditioned threat and safety cues during acquisition, and strong evidence for heightened responding to the threat cue during extinction, in SP patients vs. non-anxious controls. In both PD and SP studies, patient-control differences were identified more frequently in relation to subjective, as opposed to physiological, measures. The findings of this review are then critiqued and compared to the wider literature. Finally, implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"223 ","pages":"Article 108125"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145781529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Eun-Hwa Hong , Yang In Kim , Young-Beom Kim , June-Seek Choi
{"title":"Intrinsic excitability changes in amygdala neurons following observational fear conditioning in mice","authors":"Eun-Hwa Hong , Yang In Kim , Young-Beom Kim , June-Seek Choi","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108115","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108115","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Observational fear conditioning (OFC) is used to study the social transmission of aversive information within a social context. In a typical experiment, observers exhibit defensive responses after witnessing a demonstrator’s reaction to repeated footshocks. Despite its relevance to socially acquired fear, the underlying cellular plasticity remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated changes in the intrinsic excitability of amygdala neurons following OFC. In Experiment 1, we classified amygdala neurons into burst, regular and late-firing types, and found that burst-firing neurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and late-firing neurons in the central amygdala (CeA) of the observer mice showed increased intrinsic neuronal excitability. In Experiment 2, we found that intrinsic excitability changes in both BLA and CeA neurons were selectively enhanced when observers witnessed the demonstrator’s high-frequency jumping behavior, but not freezing. In Experiment 3, an opaque wall and a distractor were used to investigate the role of visual transmission during OFC. Although both the opaque wall and the distractor blocked observer’s fear response, burst-firing BLA neurons in the distractor group nonetheless exhibited enhanced excitability, whereas late-firing CeA neurons did not. These findings suggest that amygdala subpopulations play dissociable roles in OFC: burst-firing BLA neurons appear to be involved in processing emotionally salient sensory cues, while late-firing CeA neurons appear to mediate the expression of socially acquired fear.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"223 ","pages":"Article 108115"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145636626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vladimir P. Nikitin , Svetlana V. Solntseva , Pavel V. Nikitin
{"title":"The mechanisms of memory traces storage and interaction in snails: Role of DNA methylation and protein synthesis","authors":"Vladimir P. Nikitin , Svetlana V. Solntseva , Pavel V. Nikitin","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108105","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108105","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the storage and interaction of different memory traces remains an important, yet underexplored, topic in neurobiology. We addressed this using grape snails trained to reject two food-conditioned stimuli (CS). Our results indicate that memory storage mechanisms for distinct CS are independent, as selective impairment of memory reconsolidation with an NMDA receptor antagonist affected only one CS. When both CS reconsolidations were simultaneously disrupted, the snails developed amnesia, which manifested as anterograde amnesia on late amnesia stage, where repeated training failed to induce long-term memory formation. Intriguingly, shortened retraining in the presence of a DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitor facilitated memory recovery for one CS while preserving amnesia for the other, suggesting that latent memory traces are maintained via DNA methylation. Moreover, training to new food type aversion under a DNMT inhibitor induced spontaneous memory recovery for an old CS memory, which was tested the next day after training. This recovery did not occur during new training in the absence of the DNMT inhibitor. It was also found that a protein synthesis inhibitor administered before new training suppressed the restoration of old memory, whereas an inhibitor administered after new training, but not before it, prevented the formation of new memory. These findings demonstrate that independent molecular and epigenetic mechanisms preserve memory traces within the same neuronal ensemble and that new information can reactivate latent memories through specific protein synthesis and DNA methylation processes, offering fresh insights into memory storage and reconsolidation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"222 ","pages":"Article 108105"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145275258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Beatriz Gutiérrez-Vera, Gerardo R. Perera-Murcia, Martha L. Escobar
{"title":"How environmental enrichment influences conditioned taste aversion: A case of behavioral tagging","authors":"Beatriz Gutiérrez-Vera, Gerardo R. Perera-Murcia, Martha L. Escobar","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108100","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108100","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Exposure to environmental enrichment (EE) has demonstrated a remarkable ability to modulate cognitive processes. These effects have been associated with brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein recognized for regulating synaptic plasticity in the adult brain. Previous research from our group revealed that exposure to EE prior to the acquisition of a strong form of conditioned taste aversion (CTA) weakens the aversive response by restoring BDNF levels in the insular cortex (IC), a region in the temporal lobe involved in multimodal sensory integration and learning and memory processes. The behavioral tagging model offers a framework to explain how salient or novel events can strengthen weak memory traces encoded within critical time windows before or after the novel experience. However, to date, the effect of brief exposure to an enriched environment at the critical timeframe between the acquisition phase and the aversion test has not been fully clarified. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of environmental enrichment on the strength of CTA memory, when the EE is presented during the period spanning from acquisition to aversion test. To do so, Wistar rats were exposed to environmental enrichment for seven days between the acquisition session and the CTA aversion test. Our results show for the first time that a brief exposure to an enriched environment can strengthen the aversive response of a weak CTA. Our results also show that the response strengthening is accompanied by a reduction in BDNF levels in the IC. These findings present evidence that an aversive memory response can be modified through innovative and complex behavioral manipulation, highlighting enriched environments as potential modulators of aversive memory within critical periods of memory processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"222 ","pages":"Article 108100"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145041021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jasmin A. Strickland , Joseph M. Austen , Rolf Sprengel , David J. Sanderson
{"title":"The GRIA1 AMPA receptor subunit and selective learning","authors":"Jasmin A. Strickland , Joseph M. Austen , Rolf Sprengel , David J. Sanderson","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108089","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108089","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The GRIA1 subunit of the AMPA receptor, encoded by the <em>GRIA1</em> gene, has been implicated in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is associated with impairments in attention that may lead to other symptoms due to a failure to learn selectively (e.g., learning about redundant cues). In mice, gene-targeted inactivation of <em>GRIA1</em> impairs hippocampal synaptic plasticity and alters learning and memory. To test the role of GRIA1 in selective learning, we trained mice lacking <em>GRIA1</em> on the blocking procedure. <em>GRIA1</em> knockout mice showed normal blocking of appetitive Pavlovian conditioning, in which prior learning of an auditory cue reduced subsequent acquisition of conditioned responding to a visual cue when the two cues were trained in compound. <em>GRIA1</em> knockout mice, however, failed to show blocking of flavour preference conditioning despite normal learning of the flavour that, in contrast, was effective in blocking conditioning in control mice. This impairment occurred under conditions in which mice were exposed to one flavour a day and when exposed to two flavours a day to aid discrimination between flavours. The dissociation between learning with visual cues and learning with flavours may suggest that GRIA1 containing AMPA receptors are necessary for selective learning for particular stimulus modalities. Alternatively, GRIA1 may play a role in selective learning when the similarity between cues competing for learning is high, as for flavour preference learning, but not when low, as for auditory and visual cues.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"222 ","pages":"Article 108089"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144874287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
J.R. Watson, M.D. Lopez de Leon, E.L. Carlson, P.J. Vento
{"title":"Long-lasting avoidance induced by repeated stimulation of the rostromedial tegmental nucleus","authors":"J.R. Watson, M.D. Lopez de Leon, E.L. Carlson, P.J. Vento","doi":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108111","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nlm.2025.108111","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Adaptive decision-making requires the ability to weigh the relative costs versus the benefits of our actions and to flexibly respond to changing environmental contingencies. While midbrain dopamine (DA) has been a major focus of study for its role in associative learning, motivation, and reward seeking, far less is known regarding the contribution of inhibitory dopamine inputs in promoting behavioral inhibition and avoidance learning. The rostromedial tegmental nucleus (RMTg) sends dense GABAergic projections to DA neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and mounting evidence suggests the RMTg–VTA circuit is required to suppress reward seeking under punishment, but it remains unclear whether stimulation of this pathway is sufficient to drive learning and promote shifts in cost-benefit decisions. To test this, we developed two separate tasks of passive and active avoidance in rats where lever pressing for food reward was associated with repeated stimulation of the RMTg–VTA circuit. In a one-lever fixed ratio 5 food-seeking task, we found that pairing contingent RMTg–VTA stimulation immediately after responding for reward delivery caused a robust, yet transient suppression of reward seeking that quickly returned to baseline after stimulation ceased. When given an alternative reward choice, however, RMTg–VTA stimulation caused a rapid and enduring shift in subjective choice leading to persistent and selective avoidance of the stimulation-paired reward. These findings support a multifaceted role for the RMTg–VTA pathway in learning and decision-making and provide key insights into the neural mechanisms underlying behavioral avoidance and cost-benefit decisions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19102,"journal":{"name":"Neurobiology of Learning and Memory","volume":"222 ","pages":"Article 108111"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145409676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}