Improvement of Two-Way Active Avoidance Memory Requires Protein Kinase A Activation and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Expression in the Dorsal Hippocampus

Previous studies have shown that two-way active avoidance (TWAA) memory processing involves a functional interaction between the pontine wave (P wave) generator and the CA3 region of the dorsal hippocampus (DH-CA3). The present experiments examined whether the interaction between P wave generator activity and the DH-CA3 involves the intracellular protein kinase A (PKA) signaling system. In the first series of experiments, rats were subjected to a session of TWAA training followed immediately by bilateral microinjection of either the PKA activation inhibitor (KT-5720) or vehicle control into the DH-CA3 and tested for TWAA memory 24 h later. The results indicated that immediate KT-5720 infusion impaired improvement of TWAA performance. Additional experiments showed that KT-5720 infusion also blocked TWAA training-induced BDNF expression in the DH-CA3. Together, these findings suggest that the PKA activation and BDNF expression in the DH-CA3 is essential for the improvement of TWAA memory.