Moderate drinking? Alcohol consumption significantly decreases neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus.

Drinking alcohol in moderation is often considered a health-conscious behavior, associated with improved cardiovascular and brain health. However, "moderate" amounts of alcohol include drinking 3-4 alcohol beverages in a day, which is closer to binge drinking and may do more harm than good. Here we examined how daily drinking of moderate-high alcohol alters the production of new neurons in the adult hippocampus. Male and female adult Sprague-Dawley rats were provided free access to a liquid replacement diet that was supplemented with either 4% ethanol or Maltodextrin for a period of 2 weeks. Proliferating cells were labeled with 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU) and the number of BrdU-positive cells in the hippocampus was assessed after the final day of drinking. A subset of rats was also exposed to a motor skill or associative learning task to examine the functional effects of alcohol consumption. The drinking regime resulted in an average blood alcohol concentration of approximately 0.08%, which is comparable to the human legal driving limit in many countries. This level of intoxication did not impair motor skill learning or function in either sex, nor did the alcohol consumption disrupt associative learning 2 days after drinking. Therefore, moderate alcohol consumption did not disrupt basic sensory, motor or learning processes. However, the number of cells produced in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus was reduced by nearly 40%. Thus, even moderate consumption of alcohol for a relatively short period of time can have profound effects on structural plasticity in the adult brain.

Use it or lose it: how neurogenesis keeps the brain fit for learning.

The presence of new neurons in the adult hippocampus indicates that this structure incorporates new neurons into its circuitry and uses them for some function related to learning and/or related thought processes. Their generation depends on a variety of factors ranging from age to aerobic exercise to sexual behavior to alcohol consumption. However, most of the cells will die unless the animal engages in some kind of effortful learning experience when the cells are about one week of age. If learning does occur, the new cells become incorporated into brain circuits used for learning. In turn, some processes of learning and mental activity appear to depend on their presence. In this review, we discuss the now rather extensive literature showing that new neurons are kept alive by effortful learning, a process that involves concentration in the present moment of experience over some extended period of time. As these thought processes occur, endogenous patterns of rhythmic electrophysiological activity engage the new cells with cell networks that already exist in the hippocampus and at efferent locations. Concurrent and synchronous activity provides a mechanism whereby the new neurons become integrated with the other neurons. This integration allows the present experience to become integrated with memories from the recent past in order to learn and predict when events will occur in the near future. In this way, neurogenesis and learning interact to maintain a fit brain.

Inside the Thompson laboratory during the "cerebellar years" and the continuing cerebellar story.

This paper is based on the talk by one of the authors (DL) given at the symposium for the retirement of RF Thompson (RF Thompson: A bridge between 20th and 21st century neuroscience). We first make some informal observations of the historical times and research conditions in the Thompson laboratory when the cerebellum was found to play a critical role in eye lid classical conditioning, the "cerebellar years". These conditions influenced our collaborative international program on the phenomenon known as "transfer of training" or "savings". Our research shows that the appearance of "savings" is an artifact of the order of testing, and depends upon the functioning of the contralateral interpositus nucleus (IPN) in a way that is complementary to the role of the IPN in normal eyelid classical conditioning.

Hippocampo-cerebellar theta band phase synchrony in rabbits.

Hippocampal functioning, in the form of theta band oscillation, has been shown to modulate and predict cerebellar learning of which rabbit eyeblink conditioning is perhaps the most well-known example. The contribution of hippocampal neural activity to cerebellar learning is only possible if there is a functional connection between the two structures. Here, in the context of trace eyeblink conditioning, we show (1) that, in addition to the hippocampus, prominent theta oscillation also occurs in the cerebellum, and (2) that cerebellar theta oscillation is synchronized with that in the hippocampus. Further, the degree of phase synchrony (PS) increased both as a response to the conditioning stimuli and as a function of the relative power of hippocampal theta oscillation. However, the degree of PS did not change as a function of either training or learning nor did it predict learning rate as the hippocampal theta ratio did. Nevertheless, theta band synchronization might reflect the formation of transient neural assemblies between the hippocampus and the cerebellum. These findings help us understand how hippocampal function can affect eyeblink conditioning, during which the critical plasticity occurs in the cerebellum. Future studies should examine cerebellar unit activity in relation to hippocampal theta oscillations in order to discover the detailed mechanisms of theta-paced neural activity.