Physiological and anatomical studies of associative learning: Convergence with learning studies of W.T. Greenough

The quest to understand how the brain is able to store information for later retrieval has been pursued by many scientists through the years. Although many have made very significant contributions to the field and our current understanding of the process, few have played as pivotal a role in advancing our understanding as William T. Greenough. The current report will utilize associative learning, a training paradigm that has greatly assisted in our understanding of memory consolidation, to demonstrate how findings emerging from the Greenough laboratory helped to not only shape our current understanding of learning induced anatomical plasticity, but to also launch future analyses into the molecular players involved in this process, especially the Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein.