Special issue on molecular and cellular cognition

For a second consecutive year, we are delighted to devote an entire issue to review articles highlighting important advances in the emerging field of molecular and cellular cognition. Current and rising leaders in this field were invited to review recent developments in the molecular, cellular, and behavioral processes important for learning and memory. This special issue will be featured at the 12th Annual Meeting of the Molecular and Cellular Cognition Society and the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

This issue begins with two reviews highlighting molecular signaling pathways that are critically important for development, but that have recently gained increasing recognition for their roles in learning and memory. A review by Wayne Sossin and colleagues illustrates the role of mTOR signaling in protein synthesis-dependent, plastic changes underlying learning and memory. In addition, they examine how learning activates mTOR complexes as well as survey the critical effectors of this pathway. Ashley Kopec and Thomas Carew then review the temporal and spatial integration of a molecular network of growth factor signaling and memory formation. The unique contributions of individual growth factors as well as the interactions between their signaling cascades are discussed. In a comprehensive review by Karl Peter Giese and Keiko Mizuno, the role of protein kinases in short-term memory formation, memory consolidation, memory storage, retrieval, reconsolidation, and extinction is illustrated in extensive detail. The theme of consolidation is continued in Brian Wiltgen's review on recent methodological advances in behavioral neuroscience used to understand systems consolidation. In addition, Toni-Moi Prince and Ted Abel discuss the impact of sleep loss on hippocampal function, with a focus on the detrimental effects of post-learning sleep deprivation on memory consolidation.

The remainder of the issue underlines the significance of molecular and cellular processes that can alter higher-order processes such as cognitive disorders and diseases. Angel Barco and colleagues start by reviewing new insights into the role of methylation and demethylation of lysines in the N-terminal tail of histone H3 in cognition and disorders of intellectual disability. Robert Hawkins then describes the possible contributions of a novel form of synaptic plasticity in Aplysia to reward, memory, and their dysfunctions in the mammalian brain in several psychiatric disorders. Riccardo Brambilla, Gilberto Fisone, and colleagues provide an overview on the cognitive symptoms occurring in early Parkinson's disease patients and then describe the use of rodent and nonhuman primate models available for the study of discriminative and spatial memory attention and learning abilities related to this pathological condition. In the final review, by Jonathan Kipnis and Ioana Marin, the authors provide examples of the communication between the nervous and the immune systems in the interest of normal CNS development, function, and processes of learning and memory.

Learning & Memory created this second collection of reviews by distinguished authors to highlight advances in the ever-growing field of molecular and cellular cognition. As always, the journal will continue to encourage the continued exchange of information and debate in this field.

• © 2013, Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press