Miscellaneous

Javor, A., Kindermann, H., Reuter, M. (2016, February) Playing Counter-Strike versus Running: The Impact of Leisure Time Activities and Cortisol on Intermediate-term Memory in Male Students. Science Direct.

A study was done on men since 21% seemed to run in their free time while 55% liked to run.
There are two types of stress psychological and physical.
Researchers know that stress can have positive effects on memory, so they wanted to test if a game like CSGO would improve young men’s memory since it should replicate a physically stressful situation.
Running can also create physical stress since higher cortisol levels are needed to regulate metabolism.
The results show that running has a significant positive effect on memory, while playing a game like Counter-Strike does not.
Overall, I learned to start running after I study.

Cowansage, K., Bush, D., Josselyn, S., Klann, E., LeDoux, J. (2013, August). Basal Variability in CREB Phosphorylation Predicts Trait-like Differences in Amygdala-dependent Memory. PNAS. 110(41), 16645-16650.

Outbred rats to investigate if cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB), a transcription factor that has long been known in experimental settings to be crucial for associative plasticity, participates in natural memory phenotypes.
endogenous CREB activity in the amygdala may set a critical threshold for plasticity during memory formation.
Long-term memory (LTM) studied here.
During Pavlovian threat (fear) conditioning, an aversive stimulus which is conditioned into these rats and a neutral stimulus concurrently activate sensory pathways that lead to the lateral amygdala (LA).
Functional CREB augmentation can enhance associative plasticity, network excitability, the likelihood of neuronal participation in memories.
Established a difference between erratic and stable performers in rats.
16 percent of rats were defined as erratic and excluded from study.
Does increasing CREB in rats with poor behavioral performance lower their threshold for memory consolidation?
Ratio of pCREB to CREB may be more telling of behavior than pCREB or CREB on its own.
pCREB- phospho-CREB-Ser133.
Quantification of blots from 1-h and 30-d samples run in parallel show box-exposed L-LTM rats had higher levels of pCREB/CREB 1 hour later compared with L-LTM rats that were killed under baseline conditions.
H-LTM rats did not show a significant box-induced increase in pCREB/CREB at 1 hour relative to baseline (30 d) H-LTM counterparts.