K. Matthew Lattal
Assistant Professor
Department of Behavioral Neuroscience
Oregon Health & Science University
e-mail: lattalm@ohsu.edu
Major Areas
Associative learning theory; neurobiological basis of learning and memory
Previous Positions
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
Research Associate, University of Pennsylvania
Education
B.A., 1993, University of California, San Diego
Ph.D., 1998, University of Pennsylvania
Research Interests
My research examines basic learning processes at associative and neurobiological levels of analysis. I am particularly interested in the mechanisms that occur during initial acquisition, in which new relations are established between previously unrelated events, and extinction, which occurs as those relations established during acquisition are severed. Extinction is an active learning process that inhibits but does not erase previously learned associations, meaning that the original memory from acquisition remains, even though it is not expressed in behavior. Although extinction is an active learning process, the associative, systems, cellular, and molecular properties of acquisition and extinction appear to be quite different. For example, our work has found that although protein synthesis inhibition routinely causes long-term impairments in acquisition of contextual and spatial learning, protein synthesis inhibition has little effect on extinction. Additionally, any effect of protein synthesis inhibition during extinction appears to be temporary, as changes in behavior reverse with time. Current projects are examining processes that underlie the development and long-term maintenance of extinction.
Selected Recent Publications
Lattal KM & Abel T (2004) Behavioral impairments caused by injections of the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin after contextual retrieval reverse with time. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 101:4667-4672.
Lattal KM, Mullen MT & Abel T (2003) Extinction, renewal, and spontaneous recovery of a spatial preference. Behavioral Neuroscience. 117:1017-1028.
Lattal KM & Abel T (2001a) Different requirements for protein synthesis in acquisition and extinction of spatial preferences and context-evoked fear. Journal of Neuroscience. 21:5773-5780.
Abel T & Lattal KM (2001) Molecular mechanisms of memory acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval. Current Opinion in Neurobiology. 11:180-187.
Lattal KM (1999) Trial and intertrial durations in Pavlovian conditioning: Issues of learning and performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes. 25:433-450.
Lattal KM & Nakajima S (1998) Overexpectation in appetitive Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. Animal Learning & Behavior. 26:351-360.