Education:
BA 1952 Psychology - Reed College, Oregon
MS 1953 Psychobiology - University of Wisonsin, Wisconsin
PhD 1956 Psychobiology - University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship:
1956-1959 University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Wisconsin
1966-1967 University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Started at USC: 1987
Research Topics: Learning & Memory
Research Description
The long term goal of his research program is to understand in depth and detail how the brain codes, stores and retrieve memories. To this end he utilizes basic forms of learning and memory exhibiting the same fundamental properties in humans and other mammals to localize and analyze processes of memory storage in the brain. In earlier work, he characterized the non-associative learning phenomena of habituation and sensitization and their neural substrates. More recently and currently, he focuses on associative learning and memory, particularly classical conditioning of discrete responses (e.g. eyeblink), fear and basic processes of synaptic plasticity.
He has succeeded in identifying the entire essential (necessary and sufficient) circuit for classical conditioning of discrete responses (e.g. eyeblink) using primarily rabbit but also rat, mouse (and in collaborative work, human). The cerebellum and its associated pathways forms this essential circuitry learned with an aversive unconditioned stimulus and his evidence indicates that the memory traces are formed and stored in localized regions of cerebellar cortex and cerebellar nuclei (interpositus). Even in this basic form of associative learning, neurons in the hippocampus become massively engaged and when learning is more complex (as in trace or reversal learning) the hippocampus becomes critically important. So he focuses on the cerebellum, essential for procedural learning and memory, and the hippocampus, essential for declarative or experiential memory.
His work on basic processes of synaptic plasticity has focused on long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) in the hippocampus, using the hippocampal slice (CA1) as a model system. Prior behavioral stress markedly impairs LTP and enhances LTD and the NMDA receptor is critical for these effects. Estrogen actions via NMDA and AMPA receptors markedly enhances LTP and, in aged animals, counteracts LTD, both effects consistent with memory enhancing actions of estrogen.
His research program utilizes all variety of techniques appropriate to answer the questions of brain substrates of learning and memory, including all varieties of neurophysiology, from intracellular recording to field potentials, neuroanatomical methods, lesions and reversible inactivation, behavioral training procedures, neurochemistry, computational modeling and use of transgenic mice. His laboratory has received continuous federal research funding from its beginning and is currently funded through 2011. Among other honors he has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Science, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Selected Publications
Foy MR, Baudry M, Foy JG, Thompson RF. - 17ss-estradiol modifies stress-induced and age-related changes in hippocampal synaptic plasticity. - Behav Neurosci [ 2008 ] Apr;122(2):301-9 . PubMed
Brinton RD, Thompson RF, Foy MR, Baudry M, Wang J, Finch CE, Morgan TE, Pike CJ, Mack WJ, Stanczyk FZ, Nilsen J. - Progesterone receptors: form and function in brain. - Front Neuroendocrinol [ 2008 ] May;29(2):313-39 . PubMed
Robleto K, Thompson RF. - Extinction of a classically conditioned response: red nucleus and interpositus. - J Neurosci [ 2008 ] Mar 5;28(10):2651-8 . PubMed
Weeks AC, Connor S, Hinchcliff R, LeBoutillier JC, Thompson RF, Petit TL. - Eye-blink conditioning is associated with changes in synaptic ultrastructure in the rabbit interpositus nuclei. - Learn Mem [ 2007 ] Jun 5;14(6):385-9 . PubMed
Mojtahedian S, Kogan DR, Kanzawa SA, Thompson RF, Lavond DG. - Dissociaton of conditioned eye and limb responses in the cerebellar interpositus. - Physiol Behav [ 2007 ] May 16;91(1):9-14 . PubMed
Lee KH, Thompson RF. - Multiple memory mechanisms in the cerebellum? - Neuron [ 2006 ] Sep 21;51(6):680-2 . PubMed
Poulos AM, Pakaprot N, Mahdi B, Kehoe EJ, Thompson RF. - Decremental effects of context exposure following delay eyeblink conditioning in rabbits. - Behav Neurosci [ 2006 ] Jun;120(3):730-4 . PubMed
Park JS, Onodera T, Nishimura S, Thompson RF, Itohara S. - Molecular evidence for two-stage learning and partial laterality in eyeblink conditioning of mice. - Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A [ 2006 ] Apr 4;103(14):5549-54 . PubMed
Christian KM, Thompson RF. - Long-term storage of an associative memory trace in the cerebellum. - Behav Neurosci [ 2005 ] Apr;119(2):526-37 . PubMed
Thompson RF. - In search of memory traces. - Annu Rev Psychol [ 2005 ] 56:1-23 . PubMed
