Memory formation tagged posts

Neuroscientists have established in recent decades the idea that some of each day’s experiences are converted by the brain into permanent memories during sleep the same night. Now, a new study proposes a mechanism that determines which memories are tagged as Important enough to linger in the brain until sleep makes them permanent.

Led by researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the study revolves around brain cells called neurons that “fire” – or bring about swings in the balance of their positive and negative charges — to transmit electrical signals that encode memories...

AKT isoforms have distinct hippocampal expression and roles in synaptic plasticity. eLife, 2018 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.30640.001

New study sheds light on key protein. For 5 years, the assistant professor of integrative physiology at CU Boulder has been working to better understand a protein called AKT, which is ubiquitous in brain tissue and instrumental in enabling the brain to adapt to new experiences and lay down new memories. Until now, scientists have known very little about what it does in the brain. But in a new paper funded by the National Institutes of Health, Hoeffer and his co-authors spell it out for the first time, showing that AKT comes in 3 distinct varieties residing in different kinds of brain cells and affecting brain health in very distinct ways...

Dreaming. REM sleep is understood to be a critical component of sleep in all mammals, including humans. Credit: © Anton Maltsev / Fotolia

For decades, scientists have fiercely debated whether rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the phase where dreams appear – is directly involved in memory formation. Now researchers provide evidence that REM sleep does, indeed, play this role – at least in mice. “We already knew that newly acquired information is stored into different types of memories, spatial or emotional, before being consolidated or integrated,” says Sylvain Williams, a researcher and professor of psychiatry at McGill.

“How the brain performs this process has remained unclear – until now...

Mice with apoE4 had fewer ripples than mice with the normal apoE3 protein, and they had less slow gamma activity during the ripples. Based on these results, the scientists questioned whether these differences in activity affected the ability to form and replay memories. Image is for illustrative purposes only. Image is credited to Andrews-Zwiling Y. et al./Journal of Neuroscience, and is adapted from the Gladstone Institute video.

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have discovered how the major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease causes memory impairment. A specific type of brain activity important for memory replay is disrupted in mice with the E4 version of the apolipoprotein E (apoE4) gene, which may interfere with memory formation...