In the last 20 years, there have been significant advances in the molecular, cellular, and systems mechanisms underlying the storage of single memories. Real-world memory, however, involves the integration of multiple memories across time, with one memory affecting how others are processed and stored. Recently, memory allocation studies in our lab indicated that one memory can trigger an increase in excitability that then affect the allocation and strength of a subsequent memory, thus possibly linking the two memories across time. Using a number of techniques including in vivo calcium imaging (with head-mounted fluorescent microscopes in freely behaving mice), the TetTag transgenic system, optogenetics, electrophysiology, 2-photon microscopy and novel behavioral designs, we tested key predictions of the memory allocation hypothesis in hippocampal networks. Our results demonstrate that learning-dependent changes in neuronal excitability can serve to link memories across time.

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