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Updated: Jan 28, 2026

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
Analysis of Mutants Suggests Kamin Blocking in C. elegans is Due to Interference with Memory Recall Rather than
Daniel M Merritt1, Justina G Melkis2, Belinda Kwok3
1Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A8, Canada. dmerritt@gmail.com.
Abstract:
Higher-order conditioning phenomena, including context conditioning and blocking, occur when conditioning to one set of stimuli interacts with conditioning to a second set of stimuli to modulate the strength of the resultant memories. Here we analyze higher-order conditioning in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, demonstrating for the first time the presence of blocking in this animal, and dissociating it from context conditioning. We present an initial genetic dissection of these phenomena in a model benzaldehyde/NH4Cl aversive learning system, and suggest that blocking may involve an alteration of memory retrieval rather than storage. These findings offer a fundamentally different explanation for blocking than traditional explanations, and position C. elegans as a powerful model organism for the study of higher order conditioning.
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