What Can Genetic Models Tell Us About Behavioral Plasticity?

Abstract

Biological diversity and learning have played an essential interactive role in the evolution of species, as intra-specific individual differences have exerted a buffering effect towards environmental changes, and learning ability per se has allowed their maintenance. By exploiting biological diversity individuals with defective learning and memory have been produced that allow the study of the neural substrates of encoding mechanisms, as has been done in studies from Drosophila to rodents. Various aspects of this neurogenetic approach are reviewed and pitfalls are indicated. It is clear that genetic models need to be implemented by an integrated multidisciplinary top-down approach based on behavioral, electrophysiological, histochemical, immunocytochemical and neurochemical techniques. Examples are presented from some animal models that illustrate how a systems level analysis of the neural substrates of information processing can be carried out using such an integrated scheme.