Role Of Hsp70 In Plasticity And Memory

HSP70 are molecular chaperones that are present in neuronal cells, acting in cytoprotection and thermotolerance, preventing inflammation, apoptosis and cell death. It can be induced by a variety of stressful insults, but also by synaptic activity. Many physiological stimuli that induce long-term potentiation are also capable of stimulating the synthesis of HSP70. It's induction is enhanced in the hippocampus after learning, during memory consolidation window, which is correlated to the animal performance and not the stress induced by the task. It is also induced markedly surround the synapses between the Shaffer collateral and pyramidal cells of the hippocampal CA1 region, a crucial structure involved in associative learning. Infusion of exogenous HSP70 facilitates memory consolidation through modulation of MAPK family activity in the hippocampus. HSP70 has been shown to be important in memory-related processes and can be quickly induced after training, indicating that memory is being mastered. Thus, it may be considered useful to be used as a learning index and also has a great potential as a pharmacological target to treat memory impairments. This chapter briefly reviews recent advances in our understanding of the role of HSP70 in synaptic plasticity and memory consolidation.