AUTHOR=Chai An-Ping , Chen Xue-Feng , Xu Xiao-Shan , Zhang Na , Li Meng , Li Jin-Nan , Zhang Lei , Zhang Dai , Zhang Xia , Mao Rong-Rong , Ding Yu-Qiang , Xu Lin , Zhou Qi-Xin 

TITLE=A Temporal Activity of CA1 Neurons Underlying Short-Term Memory for Social Recognition Altered in PTEN Mouse Models of Autism Spectrum Disorder

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fncel.2021.699315

DOI=10.3389/fncel.2021.699315

ISSN=1662-5102

ABSTRACT=<p>Memory-guided social recognition identifies someone from previous encounters or experiences, but the mechanisms of social memory remain unclear. Here, we find that a short-term memory from experiencing a stranger mouse lasting under 30 min interval is essential for subsequent social recognition in mice, but that interval prolonged to hours by replacing the stranger mouse with a familiar littermate. Optogenetic silencing of dorsal CA1 neuronal activity during trials or inter-trial intervals disrupted short-term memory-guided social recognition, without affecting the ability of being sociable or long-term memory-guided social recognition. Postnatal knockdown or knockout of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-associated phosphatase and tensin homolog (<italic>PTEN</italic>) gene in dorsal hippocampal CA1 similarly impaired neuronal firing rate <italic>in vitro</italic> and altered firing pattern during social recognition. These PTEN mice showed deficits in social recognition with stranger mouse rather than littermate and exhibited impairment in T-maze spontaneous alternation task for testing short-term spatial memory. Thus, we suggest that a temporal activity of dorsal CA1 neurons may underlie formation of short-term memory to be critical for organizing subsequent social recognition but that is possibly disrupted in ASD.</p>