Dopamine modulates adaptive forgetting in medial prefrontal cortex (original) (raw)
Active forgetting occurs in many species, but how the mechanisms that control behavior contribute to determining which memories are forgotten is still unknown. We previously found that when rats need to retrieve particular memories to guide exploration, it reduces later retention of other memories encoded in that environment. As with humans, this retrieval-induced forgetting relies on prefrontal control processes. The dopaminergic input to the prefrontal cortex is important for executive functions and cognitive flexibility. We found that, in a similar way, prefrontal dopamine signaling through D1 receptors is required for retrieval-induced forgetting in rats. Blockade of medial prefrontal cortex D1 receptors as animals encountered a familiar object impaired forgetting of the memory of a competing object in a subsequent long-term memory test. Inactivation of the ventral tegmental area produced the same pattern of behavior, a pattern that could be reversed by concomitant activation of...
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