reverse memory loss in mice tagged posts

MIT researchers have demonstrated a new way to reverse memory loss by blocking an enzyme known as HDAC2. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT

Study suggests a new approach to developing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. In the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, many of the genes required to form new memories are shut down by a genetic blockade, contributing to the cognitive decline seen in those patients. MIT researchers have now shown that they can reverse memory loss in mice by interfering with the enzyme that forms the blockade. The enzyme HDAC2, turns genes off by condensing them so tightly that they can’t be expressed.

For several years, scientists and pharmaceutical companies have been trying to develop drugs that block this enzyme, but most of these drugs also block other HDAC family membe...