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Updated: May 12, 2026

Electrocorticographic Recording of Cerebral Cortex Areas Manipulated Using an Adeno-Associated Virus Targeting Cofilin in Mice
Published on: February 21, 2021
Phosphorylation of cofilin regulates extinction of conditioned aversive memory via AMPAR trafficking
Yue Wang1, Qing Dong, Xu-Feng Xu
1Department of Neurobiology, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Mental Disorders, School of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250012, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Actin dynamics provide an important mechanism for the modification of synaptic plasticity, which is regulated by the actin depolymerizing factor (ADF)/cofilin. However, the role of cofilin regulated actin dynamics in memory extinction process is still unclear. Here, we observed that extinction of conditioned taste aversive (CTA) memory led to temporally enhanced ADF/cofilin activity in the infralimbic cortex (IrL) of the rats. Moreover, temporally elevating ADF/cofilin activity in the IrL could accelerate CTA memory extinction by facilitating AMPAR synaptic surface recruitment, whereas inhibition of ADF/cofilin activity abolished AMPAR synaptic surface trafficking and impaired memory extinction. Finally, we observed that ADF/cofilin-regulated synaptic plasticity was not directly coupled to morphological changes of postsynaptic spines. These findings may help us understand the role of ADF/cofilin-regulated actin dynamics in memory extinction and suggest that appropriate manipulating ADF/cofilin activity might be a suitable way for therapeutic treatment of memory disorders.
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