Role of 5-HTP in Operantly Conditioned Memory Consolidation for D. Tigrina

Overview

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that begins with mild memory loss and accumulates to severe dementia. The scope of research for AD has become increasingly narrow, now mostly focusing on investigating amyloid beta and tau. However, all this research on these two proteins have yielded few, if any, effective treatments for dementia. On the other hand, a relatively-unexplored molecule in this field, serotonin, seems to have some interesting implications in relation to the central nervous system (CNS). Recent research has revealed a connection between the hippocampus, which is involved in both AD and memory, and serotonin. Furthermore, my research on D. tigrina from previous years revealed a connection between serotonin and increased regeneration of the CNS – a function the human CNS lacks, leading to increased severity of AD. Therefore, serotonin’s role in memory retention was quantified in this study. This was done using 5-HTP, the precursor to serotonin, and D. tigrina, a regenerating flatworm with a homologous CNS to humans. Half of the organisms were treated with liquid 5-HTP while the other half were the control. All organisms were operantly conditioned with a 3D printed Y-maze. The left side received light stimulus as positive punishment and the right side received beef liver as a positive reinforcement. Initial biases were taken without conditions and experimentation utilized a double-blind procedure. Conditioning was done for five days and Testing (memory retention) was done for five days following. This was repeated for Re-Conditioning and Re-Testing to quantify recall ability. The number of right turns was recorded daily and used to compute success of conditioning and recall. The conditioning procedure was then modified using an automated model which uses Arduino code and a PIR sensor to decrease error and human involvement. Data analysis revealed a significant difference between the memory retention of D. tigrina treated and untreated with 5-HTP. There was also a significant difference in the time taken to complete the maze between the groups. This suggests that 5-HTP increases the memory retention and efficiency of memory recall for D. tigrina.

Competition history

• AJAS 2024 Category not listed

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