We report that acutely increasing O-GlcNAcylation in Sprague Dawley rat hippocampal slices induces an NMDA receptor and protein kinase C-independent long-term depression (LTD) at hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapses (O-GcNAc LTD). This LTD requires AMPAR GluA2 subunits, which we demonstrate are O-GlcNAcylated. Increasing O-GlcNAcylation interferes with long-term potentiation, and in hippocampal behavioral assays, it prevents novel object recognition and placement without affecting contextual fear conditioning. Our findings provide evidence that O-GlcNAcylation dynamically modulates hippocampal synaptic function and learning and memory, and suggest that altered O-GlcNAc levels could underlie cognitive dysfunction in neurological diseases.

Whether estrogen replacement is beneficial to cognitive health is controversial. Some studies have shown that estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) relieves memory impairment associated with menopause in women, whereas others suggest that estrogen not only is incapable of providing a benefit, but actually can be detrimental. One possible explanation for this discrepancy in study findings could be the varying time after menopause at which ERT is initiated. It has been proposed that a critical period exists during which ERT must be administered to enhance cognitive function. This idea has yet to be tested directly using functional synaptic studies, however. Here we investigated whether prolonged hormone deprivation caused by ovariectomy (OVX) in young adult rats prevents the ability of estrogen replacement to increase synaptic function in the hippocampus to a degree necessary for estrogen-induced improvement in learning and memory. Remarkably, estrogen replacement was found to increase long-term potentiation, the current mediated by NR2B-containing NMDA receptors, and the dendritic spine density at CA3-CA1 synapses up to 15 months post-OVX. However, by 19 months post-OVX, the same estrogen replacement was unable to induce these changes. Importantly, this loss of estrogen's effectiveness was seen to be a consequence of the duration of deprivation. In female rats aged with their ovaries intact and examined at the same chronological age as the 19-month post-OVX group, estrogen replacement significantly increased synaptic function and spine density. These data clearly demonstrate that a critical period exists during which ERT must be administered, and that once this period passes, the beneficial effects are lost.C ognitive function fluctuates across the menstrual cycle in women, with increased learning occurring when plasma estrogen levels are highest (1, 2). As such, loss of endogenous estrogen production after menopause, a consequence of normal aging, has been correlated with cognitive deficits (3). Treatment with estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) is not always successful in alleviating this hormone-related cognitive decline (4, 5). This lack of benefit of ERT may be explained by the critical period hypothesis, which proposes that there is a critical period after reproductive senescence during which estrogen is capable of increasing hippocampal function to a sufficient degree to enhance memory processing. After this period, ERT might be ineffective and possibly even detrimental (6, 7).Hippocampal learning is increased during proestrus in cycling rats, and this effect can be mimicked in young adult ovariectomized (OVX) rats treated with the ovarian estrogen 17β-estradiol (E2) (8-11). Similar to women, rats that experience long-term ovarian hormone deprivation no longer benefit from E2's effects on enhancing hippocampal learning (12-15). The role of ovarian hormone senescence in the effectiveness of E2 replacement in enhancing learning is difficult to distinguish from normal aging processes, given that aging alone is kn...

We previously reported that treating aged female rats, ovariectomized (OVX) as young adults, with acute proestrous levels of 17β estradiol (E2) increases CA1 spine density, NMDAR/AMPAR ratio, GluN2B-mediated NMDAR current, and LTP at CA3-CA1 synapses if administered by 15, but not at 19, months post-OVX, defining the critical window of opportunity. Importantly, when rats are aged with ovaries intact until OVX at 20 months, hippocampal E2 responsiveness is maintained, indicating the deficit at 19 months post-OVX is a consequence of the duration of hormone deprivation and not chronological age. Here, we find the beneficial effect of E2 on novel object recognition in OVX rats was constrained by the same critical window. Furthermore, chronic low level E2 replacement, commenced by 11 months post-OVX using subcutaneous capsules removed 2 weeks prior to acute proestrous E2 treatment, prevents the loss of hippocampal responsiveness at 19 months post-OVX. These data define the dynamic nature of the critical window showing that chronic replacement with physiological E2 levels within a certain period post-OVX can lengthen the window.

Summary Memory impairment is the most commonly reported cognitive symptom associated with major depressive disorder. Decreased hippocampal volume and neurogenesis in depression link hippocampal dysfunction with deficits in memory. Stress decreases hippocampal dendritic spine density and long-term potentiation (LTP) at glutamate synapses, a cellular correlate of learning and memory. However, elevated plasma levels of 17β estradiol (E2) during proestrus increase hippocampal structure and function, directly opposing the negative consequences of stress. In women, significant fluctuations in ovarian hormones likely increase vulnerability of hippocampal circuits to stress, potentially contributing to the greater incidence of depression compared to men. Using the learned helplessness model of depression and ovariectomized female rats, we investigated whether acquisition of helplessness and hippocampal synaptic dysfunction is differentially impacted by the presence or absence of plasma E2. We find that inescapable shock induces a greater incidence of helplessness in vehicle- versus E2-treated OVX rats. In the vehicle-treated group, LTP was absent at CA3-CA1 synapses in slices only from helpless rats, and CA1 spine density was decreased compared to resilient rats. In contrast, significant LTP was observed in slices from E2-treated helpless rats; importantly, spine density was not different between E2-treated helpless and resilient rats, dissociating spine density from the LTP magnitude. We also find that E2 replacement can reverse previously established helpless behavior. Thus, our results show that E2 replacement in OVX rats increases resilience and improves hippocampal plasticity, suggesting that E2 therapy may increase resilience to stress and preserve hippocampal function in women experiencing large fluctuations in plasma estrogen levels.

When circulating 17β estradiol (E2) is elevated to proestrous levels, hippocampus-dependent learning and memory is enhanced in female rodents, nonhuman primates, and women due to heightened synaptic function at hippocampal synapses. We previously reported that proestrous-like levels of E2 administered to young adult ovariectomized (OVX) female rats increases the magnitude of LTP at CA3 Schaffer collateral (SC)-CA1 synapses only when dendritic spine density, the NMDAR/AMPAR ratio, and current mediated by GluN2B-containing NMDA receptors (NMDARs) are simultaneously increased. We also reported that this increase in GluN2B-mediated NMDAR current in area CA1 is causally related to the E2-induced increase in novel object recognition, tying together heightened synaptic function with improved learning and memory. In addition to SC inputs, innervation from the entorhinal cortex in the temporoammonic (TA) pathway onto CA1 distal dendrites in stratum lacunosum-moleculare is critical for spatial memory formation and retrieval. It is not known whether E2 modulates TA-CA1 synapses similarly to SC-CA1 synapses. Here, we report that 24 hours post-E2 injection, dendritic spine density on CA1 pyramidal cell distal dendrites and current mediated by GluN2B-containing NMDARs at TA-CA1 synapses is increased, similarly to our previous findings at SC-CA1 synapses. However, in contrast to SC-CA1 synapses, AMPAR transmission at TA-CA1 synapses is significantly increased, and there is no effect on the LTP magnitude. Pharmacological blockade of GluN2B-containing NMDARs or ERK activation, which occurs downstream of synaptic but not extrasynaptic GluN2B-containing NMDARs, attenuates the LTP magnitude only in slices from E2-treated rats. These data show that E2 recruits a causal role for GluN2B-containing NMDARs and ERK signaling in the induction of LTP, cellular mechanisms not required for LTP induction at TA-CA1 synapses in vehicle-treated OVX female rats.

The hippocampus is essential for learning and memory but also regulates emotional behavior. We previously identified the hippocampus as a major brain region that differs in rats bred for emotionality differences. Rats bred for low novelty response (LRs) exhibit high levels of anxiety‐ and depression‐like behavior compared to high novelty responder (HR) rats. Manipulating the hippocampus of high‐anxiety LR rats improves their behavior, although no work to date has examined possible HR/LR differences in hippocampal synaptic physiology. Thus, the current study examined hippocampal slice electrophysiology, dendritic spine density, and transcriptome profiling in HR/LR hippocampus, and compared performance on three hippocampus‐dependent tasks: The Morris water maze, contextual fear conditioning, and active avoidance. Our physiology experiments revealed increased long‐term potentiation (LTP) at CA3–CA1 synapses in HR versus LR hippocampus, and Golgi analysis found an increased number of dendritic spines in basal layer of CA1 pyramidal cells in HR versus LR rats. Transcriptome data revealed glutamate neurotransmission as the top functional pathway differing in the HR/LR hippocampus. Our behavioral experiments showed that HR/LR rats exhibit similar learning and memory capability in the Morris water maze, although the groups differed in fear‐related tasks. LR rats displayed greater freezing behavior in the fear‐conditioning task, and HR/LR rats adopted distinct behavioral strategies in the active avoidance task. In the active avoidance task, HRs avoided footshock stress by pressing a lever when presented with a warning cue; LR rats, on the other hand, waited until footshocks began before pressing the lever to stop them. Taken together, these findings concur with prior observations of HR rats generally exhibiting active stress coping behavior while LRs exhibit reactive coping. Overall, our current findings coupled with previous work suggest that HR/LR differences in stress reactivity and stress coping may derive, at least in part, from differences in the developing and adult hippocampus.

O‐GlcNAcylation is a dynamic posttranslational modification involving O‐linked addition of β‐N‐acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) to serine/threonine residues on nucleocytoplasmic proteins. Hippocampal neurons express high levels of OGT and OGA, enzymes that add and remove O‐GlcNAc moieties. We investigated whether increasing O‐GlcNAcylation, with glucosamine or the OGA inhibitor Thiamet‐G, modulates synaptic transmission at CA3‐CA1 synapses in hippocampus, a brain region required for learning and memory. We find that increased O‐GlcNAcylation induces a novel long‐term depression (glucosamine: 85% ± 2.6% and Thiamet‐G: 81% ± 4.1% of baseline) and causes decrementing long‐term potentiation (control: 137 ± 4%, Thiamet‐G: 122 ± 6% of baseline). We also find that AMPA receptor GluA2, but not GluA1, subunits are O‐GlcNAcylated. We further demonstrate that increasing O‐GlcNAcylation in vivo interferes with novel object recognition while contextual fear conditioning is intact. These findings support the notion that an acute change in O‐GlcNAcylation of synaptic proteins is a novel fundamental mechanism capable of modulating synaptic efficacy and memory processing.