Brain-wide mapping reveals that engrams for a single memory are distributed across multiple brain regions

Dheeraj S. Roy (), Young-Gyun Park, Minyoung E. Kim, Ying Zhang, Sachie K. Ogawa, Nicholas DiNapoli, Xinyi Gu, Jae H. Cho, Heejin Choi, Lee Kamentsky, Jared Martin, Olivia Mosto, Tomomi Aida, Kwanghun Chung () and Susumu Tonegawa ()
Additional contact information
Dheeraj S. Roy: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Young-Gyun Park: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Minyoung E. Kim: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ying Zhang: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sachie K. Ogawa: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nicholas DiNapoli: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Xinyi Gu: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jae H. Cho: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Heejin Choi: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lee Kamentsky: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jared Martin: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Olivia Mosto: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tomomi Aida: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kwanghun Chung: Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Susumu Tonegawa: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Neuronal ensembles that hold specific memory (memory engrams) have been identified in the hippocampus, amygdala, or cortex. However, it has been hypothesized that engrams of a specific memory are distributed among multiple brain regions that are functionally connected, referred to as a unified engram complex. Here, we report a partial map of the engram complex for contextual fear conditioning memory by characterizing encoding activated neuronal ensembles in 247 regions using tissue phenotyping in mice. The mapping was aided by an engram index, which identified 117 cFos+ brain regions holding engrams with high probability, and brain-wide reactivation of these neuronal ensembles by recall. Optogenetic manipulation experiments revealed engram ensembles, many of which were functionally connected to hippocampal or amygdala engrams. Simultaneous chemogenetic reactivation of multiple engram ensembles conferred a greater level of memory recall than reactivation of a single engram ensemble, reflecting the natural memory recall process. Overall, our study supports the unified engram complex hypothesis for memory storage.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29384-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29384-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29384-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().