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.
10 Selected Publications:
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Connor S,Bloomfield J,LeBoutillier JC,Thompson RF,Petit TL,Weeks AC - Eyeblink conditioning leads to fewer synapses in the rabbit cerebellar cortex. - Behav Neurosci [2009] Aug;123(4):856-62 PubMed
Poulos AM,Nobuta H,Thompson RF - Disruption of cerebellar cortical inhibition in the absence of learning promotes sensory-evoked eyeblink responses. - Behav Neurosci [2009] Jun;123(3):694-700 PubMed
Thompson RF,Steinmetz JE - The Role of the Cerebellum in Classical Conditioning of Discrete Behavioral Responses. - Neuroscience [2009] Jan 26;(): PubMed
Lee KH,Chatila TA,Ram RA,Thompson RF - Impaired memory of eyeblink conditioning in CaMKIV KO mice. - Behav Neurosci [2009] Apr;123(2):438-42 PubMed
Pakaprot N,Kim S,Thompson RF - The role of the cerebellar interpositus nucleus in short and long term memory for trace eyeblink conditioning. - Behav Neurosci [2009] Feb;123(1):54-61 PubMed
Foy MR,Baudry M,Diaz Brinton R,Thompson RF - Estrogen and hippocampal plasticity in rodent models. - J Alzheimers Dis [2008] Dec;15(4):589-603 PubMed
Foy MR,Akopian G,Thompson RF - Progesterone regulation of synaptic transmission and plasticity in rodent hippocampus. - Learn Mem [2008] ;15(11):820-2 PubMed
Rankin CH,Abrams T,Barry RJ,Bhatnagar S,Clayton DF,Colombo J,Coppola G,Geyer MA,Glanzman DL,Marsland S,McSweeney FK,Wilson DA,Wu CF,Thompson RF - Habituation revisited: An updated and revised description of the behavioral characteristics of habituation. - Neurobiol Learn Mem [2008] Nov 5;(): PubMed
Thompson RF - Habituation: A history. - Neurobiol Learn Mem [2008] Sep 9;(): PubMed
Foy MR,Baudry M,Foy JG,Thompson RF - 17beta-estradiol modifies stress-induced and age-related changes in hippocampal synaptic plasticity. - Behav Neurosci [2008] Apr;122(2):301-9 PubMed
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