c-Fos, Arc, and stargazin expression in rat eyeblink conditioning

Neuronal plasticity induced by behavioral experience, as in memory formation, has been considered to involve transcriptional or translational changes in subsets of neurons involved in different forms of learning. Here, alteration in protein expression during cerebellar learning was investigated using rat eyeblink conditioning. After a single training session of delay conditioning, c-Fos was insignificantly increased when compared to naïve or pseudoconditioned rats. In contrast, the number of Purkinje cells with positive expression of activity-regulated cytoskeletal-associated protein was significantly increased in the cerebellar cortex. A significant increase in Stargazin expression was also identified in the whole cerebellum. These preliminary findings document possible molecular mechanisms underlying the establishment of memory in the mammalian cerebellum.