Interaction Between Emotion and Memory: Importance of Mammillary Bodies Damage in a Mouse Model of the Alcoholic Korsakoff Syndrome

Chronic alcohol consumption (CAC) can lead to the Korsakoff syndrome (KS), a memory deficiency attributed to diencephalie damage and/or to medial temporal or cortical related dysfunction. The etiology of KS remains unclear. Most animal models of KS involve thiaminedeficient diets associated with pyr...

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Main Author: Daniel Béracochéa
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2005-01-01
Series:Neural Plasticity
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/NP.2005.275
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author Daniel Béracochéa
author_facet Daniel Béracochéa
author_sort Daniel Béracochéa
collection DOAJ
description Chronic alcohol consumption (CAC) can lead to the Korsakoff syndrome (KS), a memory deficiency attributed to diencephalie damage and/or to medial temporal or cortical related dysfunction. The etiology of KS remains unclear. Most animal models of KS involve thiaminedeficient diets associated with pyrithiamine treatment. Here we present a mouse model of CAC-induced KS. We demonstrate that CAC-generated retrieval memory deficits in working/ episodic memory tasks, together with a reduction of fear reactivity, result from damage to the mammillary bodies (MB). Experimental lesions of MB in non-alcoholic mice produced the same memory and emotional impairments. Drugs having anxiogenic-like properties counteract such impairments produced by CAC or by MB lesions. We suggest (a) that MB are the essential components of a brain network underlying emotional processes, which would be critically important in the retrieval processes involved in working/ episodic memory tasks, and (b) that failure to maintain emotional arousal due to MB damage can be a main factor of CAC-induced memory deficits. Overall, our animal model fits well with general neuropsychological and anatomic impairments observed in KS.
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spelling doaj-art-fb78c39d6e8b4e8884ea8366478fffca2025-08-20T02:22:56ZengWileyNeural Plasticity2090-59041687-54432005-01-0112427528710.1155/NP.2005.275Interaction Between Emotion and Memory: Importance of Mammillary Bodies Damage in a Mouse Model of the Alcoholic Korsakoff SyndromeDaniel Béracochéa0Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, UMR CNRS 5106, Université de Bordeaux 1, Avenue des facultés, Talence 33405, FranceChronic alcohol consumption (CAC) can lead to the Korsakoff syndrome (KS), a memory deficiency attributed to diencephalie damage and/or to medial temporal or cortical related dysfunction. The etiology of KS remains unclear. Most animal models of KS involve thiaminedeficient diets associated with pyrithiamine treatment. Here we present a mouse model of CAC-induced KS. We demonstrate that CAC-generated retrieval memory deficits in working/ episodic memory tasks, together with a reduction of fear reactivity, result from damage to the mammillary bodies (MB). Experimental lesions of MB in non-alcoholic mice produced the same memory and emotional impairments. Drugs having anxiogenic-like properties counteract such impairments produced by CAC or by MB lesions. We suggest (a) that MB are the essential components of a brain network underlying emotional processes, which would be critically important in the retrieval processes involved in working/ episodic memory tasks, and (b) that failure to maintain emotional arousal due to MB damage can be a main factor of CAC-induced memory deficits. Overall, our animal model fits well with general neuropsychological and anatomic impairments observed in KS.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/NP.2005.275
spellingShingle Daniel Béracochéa
Interaction Between Emotion and Memory: Importance of Mammillary Bodies Damage in a Mouse Model of the Alcoholic Korsakoff Syndrome
Neural Plasticity
title Interaction Between Emotion and Memory: Importance of Mammillary Bodies Damage in a Mouse Model of the Alcoholic Korsakoff Syndrome
title_full Interaction Between Emotion and Memory: Importance of Mammillary Bodies Damage in a Mouse Model of the Alcoholic Korsakoff Syndrome
title_fullStr Interaction Between Emotion and Memory: Importance of Mammillary Bodies Damage in a Mouse Model of the Alcoholic Korsakoff Syndrome
title_full_unstemmed Interaction Between Emotion and Memory: Importance of Mammillary Bodies Damage in a Mouse Model of the Alcoholic Korsakoff Syndrome
title_short Interaction Between Emotion and Memory: Importance of Mammillary Bodies Damage in a Mouse Model of the Alcoholic Korsakoff Syndrome
title_sort interaction between emotion and memory importance of mammillary bodies damage in a mouse model of the alcoholic korsakoff syndrome
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/NP.2005.275
work_keys_str_mv AT danielberacochea interactionbetweenemotionandmemoryimportanceofmammillarybodiesdamageinamousemodelofthealcoholickorsakoffsyndrome