Behavioral and circuit analysis of learning and memory in mollusks

The major advantage of using gastropod mollusks for investigating neural mechanisms underlying learning and memory is that behavioral studies can be linked to circuit analysis by taking advantage of the ability to identify individual neurons with known electrical properties and synaptic connectivity (Benjamin, 2012). Simple forms of associative learning such as classical and operant conditioning and nonassociative forms such as habituation and sensitization have been extensively investigated. The use of a wide variety of learning paradigms in a number of different gastropod species allows comparisons to be made of underlying neural mechanisms involved in memory formation in different types of learning (e.g., associative vs. nonassociative, classical vs. operant conditioning). Important progress has been made in the understanding of the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in gastropod memory formation, but nonsynaptic (cellular) mechanisms such as changes in excitability also have been increasingly recognized as contributing to memory formation. These data on gastropod mollusks are of general importance in the understanding of the mechanisms of memory formation in the brain.