Role of 5-HTP Mediated Serotonergic Activity 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 cen tral 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 d one for five days following. This was repeated for Re-Conditioning and Re-Testing to quantify recall ability.

Competition history

• JSHS 2024 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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