Thomas Blank, Ingrid Nijholt, Min-Jeong Kye, Jelena Radulovic
& Joachim Spiess
Department of Molecular Neuroendocrinology, Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine, D-37075 Goettingen, Germany.
Correspondence should be addressed to Thomas Blank blank@em.mpg.de
Cognitive deficits are among the most devastating changes associated with the aging process. Age-related decrement in performance on learning tasks1,
2 is correlated with substantial changes in neuronal signal processing in the hippocampus3,
4,
5. Here we show that elevated expression of small-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels (SK channels) of the SK3 type in hippocampi of aged mice contributes to reduced long-term potentiation (LTP) and impaired trace fear conditioning, a hippocampus-dependent learning task6,
7.
