“Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a major discovery in how the brain encodes memories. The finding, published in the December 24 issue of the journal Neuron, could eventually lead to the development of new drugs to aid memory.
The team of scientists is the first to uncover a central process in encoding memories that occurs at the level of the synapse, where neurons connect with each other.
“When we learn new things, when we store memories, there are a number of things that have to happen,” said senior author Kenneth S. Kosik, co-director and Harriman Chair in Neuroscience Research, at UCSB’s Neuroscience Research Institute. Kosik is a leading researcher in the area of Alzheimer’s disease.
“One of the most important processes is that the synapses — which cement those memories into place — have to be strengthened,” said Kosik. “In strengthening a synapse you build a connection, and certain synapses are encoding a memory. Those synapses have to be strengthened so that memory is in place and stays there. Strengthening synapses is a very important part of learning. What we have found appears to be one part of how that happens.”"
Read more at Science Daily
People don’t realise how little we know about.. everything..
We have no idea what the universe actually IS, we don’t even know what a black hole is.. We can’t cure a cold, and we don’t know what actually makes headaches hurt.. No idea what dreams are, how memory recall actually works, or for that matter, how the brain itself works! We know it involves cells, and signals, and that’s pretty much it..
WOW – Memory drugs would help me with my revision!!!
COOL
I wonder .. why does it need to be silenced, would the brain/memory system get triggered constantly otherwise? It may not have been silent though, just being held down by something else again that is equal in strength? itsn’t it a network up there as well? And this is being observed in healthy structures? Not human. Nah, not that I already see something big and different now, just following some structures in my brain here, it’s not a sc. review.
Has nothing to do yet with Alzheimer although they ofcourse will have hope ofcourse to find systems in here that might give more insight in Alzheimer and possible improvements, stalling methods, prevention, let alone .. to cure (one of scientist’s dreams I hope .. to cure al those who suffer from it and to prevent all others from getting it, but it is normally baby steps (even smaller)).
Excellent, now its only a few more years before they zoom in a bit closer and ‘discover’ what shamans have known for eons, that memories are actually encoded, via the mechanism described above, and then into the DNA itself and passed on down the generations.
I don’t see how discovering one part of how the ‘synapses’ are strengthened will help develop drugs to help memory loss… I suppose it can be considered an important milestone, but not much else.
I really like the articles that you feature here. Keep it up…
The basic mechanism described here is Hebbian learning which has been known for ages. Understanding the implications of Hebbian learning is interesting but not new. My guess is they’ve discovered a new detail about the various neurotransmitters involved but this would be too arcane for a news article.