nervous system
• transient acid-evoked cation currents are absent in hippocampal neurons, however currents activated by GABA, AMPA, and NMDA are normal
• baseline synaptic transmission in the hippocampus is normal
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• EPSP facilitation during high-frequency stimulation is impaired
• however paired pulse facilitation is intact
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• hippocampal long-term potentiation is impaired
• however, LTP is restored following high-frequency stimulation in the presence of 10 uM phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) or in the presence of low Mg2+
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behavior/neurological
• mutants exhibit impaired eye blink conditioning; after five training sessions, mutants show a conditioned response only about 50% of the time compared to the 80% seen in wild-type
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• subtle differences in performance of a probe trial, with mutants showing similar amounts of time spent in all quadrants while wild-type mutants spent more time in the training quadrant
• in a two trial platform reversal test, the time required for mutants to locate the platform in the training and in the opposite quadrant were similar unlike in controls which find the platform in the training quadrant faster than in the opposite quadrant
• however, intensive training can reverse the spatial learning deficit
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• mutants are significantly slower at locating the hidden platform in the Morris water maze beyond day 3 of testing, but not at earlier times, indicating memory deficits
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