# Mechanisms of compartmentalized plasticity in learning and memory

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF IOWA · 2024 · $377,088

## Abstract

Project Summary
A major goal of neuroscience research is to understand how experience reweights the flow of information
across brain circuits. This involves plasticity that occurs at across different regions of neurons (i.e., subcellular
compartmentalization). Our preliminary data revealed compartmentalization of signaling within neurons that
encode olfactory memories, and further found that learning drives spatially broad elevations of Ca2+. This
suggests that multiple signals are integrated across different spatial scales during learning events to modulate
compartmentalized plasticity. Here we will test how compartmentalized plasticity drives the ensembles of
changes across multiple spatial scales in the nervous system that leads to coherent action selection.
We will test the mechanisms of compartmentalized presynaptic plasticity down to the subcellular level, using
the genetically powerful, highly tractable nervous system of Drosophila melanogaster. The Drosophila
mushroom body (MB) carries olfactory information from olfactory projection neurons to downstream circuits
that mediate fundamental decision-making processes. We will use this system as a testbed to dissect the
mechanisms of compartmentalized plasticity at the molecular levels, examine cellular integration and synaptic
plasticity, and probe how these processes modulate behavioral action selection via actions on discrete circuits
that modulate behavior.
Understanding how memories are encoded in the brain and disrupted in brain disorders is a prerequisite to the
rational design of treatments for memory impairment. Results of the present studies will provide guideposts for
future research into the molecular biology of memory formation across multiple model organisms (including
mammals), as the function of key molecules, cellular mechanisms, cellular compartmentalization and synaptic
function, circuit motifs, and computational primitives are both conserved across species and crucial across
multiple circuits & types of memory. The project will support our long-term goal of understanding of memory
down to the single-cell level, contributing to the knowledge base necessary for the rational development of
novel treatments for memory impairment.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10817666
- **Project number:** 5R01NS124716-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
- **Principal Investigator:** Seth M Tomchik
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $377,088
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-04-01 → 2028-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10817666

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10817666, Mechanisms of compartmentalized plasticity in learning and memory (5R01NS124716-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10817666. Licensed CC0.

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