memory tagged posts

Take a look around your home and you’ll find yourself surrounded by familiar comforts—photos of family and friends on the wall, well-worn sneakers by the door, a shelf adorned with travel mementos. Objects like these are etched into our memory, shaping who we are and helping us navigate environments and daily life with ease. But how do these memories form? And what if we could stop them from slipping away under a devastating condition like Alzheimer’s disease?

Scientists at UBC’s faculty of medicine have just uncovered a crucial piece of the puzzle. In a study published in Nature Communications, the researchers have discovered a new type of brain cell that plays a central role in our ability to remember and recognize objects.

Called “ovoid cells,” these highly-specialized neur...

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Cambridge in the U.K. and collaborating institutions have shown that serotonin 2C receptor in the brain regulates memory in people and animal models. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, not only provide new insights into the factors involved in healthy memory but also in conditions associated with memory loss, like Alzheimer’s disease, and suggest novel avenues for treatment.

“Serotonin, a compound produced by neurons in the midbrain, acts as a neurotransmitter, passing messages between brain cells,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Yong Xu, professor of pediatrics—nutrition and associate director for basic sciences at the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor.

“Serotonin-produc...

A new study led by UCLA Health has shown that repetitive practice not only is helpful in improving skills but also leads to profound changes in the brain’s memory pathways.

The research, published in the journal Nature and co-led by Rockefeller University, sought to unravel how the brain’s ability to retain and process information, known as working memory, improves through training.

To test this, researchers tasked mice with identifying and recalling a sequence of odors over the course of two weeks. Researchers then tracked neural activity in the animals as they practiced the task by using a novel, custom-built microscope to image cellular activity in up to 73,000 neurons simultaneously throughout the cortex.

The study revealed a transformation...

Researchers have established the protein p53 as critical for regulating sociability, repetitive behavior, and hippocampus-related learning and memory in mice, illuminating the relationship between the protein-coding gene TP53 and neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders like ...