Hayashi-Takagi, A., Yagishita, S., Nakamura, M., Shirai, F., Wu, Y. I., Loshbaugh,
A. L., … & Kasai, H. (2015). Labelling and optical erasure of synaptic memory traces in the
motor cortex. Nature, 525(7569), 333. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15257
AS-PaRac1 (activated synapse targeting photoactivatable Rac1)
Motor cortex
Authors develop a novel genetic construct that labels potentiated spines and allows
them to be selectively shrunk via photoactivation. They show that this can label the synaptic
ensemble associated with the learning of a particular motor task. They ‘erase’ this motor
memory specifically while not affecting a distinct motor memory.
“The acquired motor learning was disrupted by the optical shrinkage of the potentiated
spines, whereas it was not affected by the identical manipulation of spines evoked by a distinct
motor task in the same cortical region. Taken together, our results demonstrate that a newly
acquired motor skill depends on the formation of a task-specific dense synaptic ensemble.”