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Change in a specific phosphoprotein band following associative learning in Hermissenda

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Abstract

Although cellular neurophysiological studies of invertebrates have provided some understanding of the cellular basis of modifiable behaviour (for reviews, see refs 1–5), little is known about biochemical changes in the specific neural pathways accompanying alterations in behaviour. The nervous systems and sensory structures of invertebrates are especially suitable to an analysis of the biochemical mechanisms involved in behavioural modification because they typically contain a relatively small number of neurones, some of which have large, identifiable somata, and because associative learning has been studied in several invertebrate preparations6–10. Studies with the nudibranch mollusc Hermissenda crassicornis have demonstrated a short-term non-associative change in phototactic behaviour after training with light and rotation11. More recently8,12, an example of associative learning in Hermissenda was produced by the temporal association of light and a presumed aversive stimulus. This associative learning is accompanied by neurophysiological changes in the B-type photoreceptors12. We now report that there is also a change in the level of incorporation of 32P in a 20,000-molecular weight (MW) phosphoprotein; as the eye of Hermissenda consists of only five photoreceptors, a lens and a few pigment and epithelial cells, a biochemical change specific to associative learning has thus been localized to a few cells within a nervous system.

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Author notes

  1. Terry Crow

    Present address: Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15261, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section on Neural Systems, Laboratory of Biophysics, IRP, NINCDS, National Institutes of Health at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 02543, USA

    Joseph T. Neary, Terry Crow & Daniel L. Alkon

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  1. Joseph T. Neary
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  2. Terry Crow
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  3. Daniel L. Alkon
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Neary, J., Crow, T. & Alkon, D. Change in a specific phosphoprotein band following associative learning in Hermissenda. Nature 293, 658–660 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/293658a0

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