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How brain keeps
memories alive for decades
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ANI: Scientists, including Indian-origin
researchers, have found that a
prion-like protein
plays a key role in storing long-term memories.
Memories in our brains are maintained by
connections between
neurons called “synapses”.
Neuroscientists at the
Stowers Institute for
Medical Research have discovered a major clue from a study in fruit flies,
hardy, self-copying clusters or
oligomers of a synapse
protein are an essential ingredient for the formation of long-term memory.
The finding supports a surprising new theory
about memory, and may have a profound impact on explaining other
oligomer-linked
functions and diseases in the brain, including Alzheimer’s disease and
prion diseases.
“Self-sustaining populations of
oligomers located at
synapses may be the key to the long-term synaptic changes that underlie memory;
in fact, our finding hints that
oligomers play a wider
role in the brain than has been thought,”
Kausik
Si, senior author of the
study, said.
Si’s investigations in this area began nearly a decade ago during his
doctoral research in the Columbia University laboratory of Nobel-winning
neuroscientist Eric Kandel.
He found that in the sea slug
Aplysia
californica, which
has long been favored
by neuroscientists for memory experiments because of its large, easily-studied
neurons, a synapse-maintenance protein known as
CPEB (Cytoplasmic
Polyadenylation
Element Binding protein) has an unexpected property.
A portion of the structure is self-complementary
and, much like empty egg cartons, can easily stack up with other copies of
itself. CPEB thus exists
in neurons partly in the form of
oligomers, which
increase in number when neuronal synapses strengthen.
These
oligomers have a
hardy resistance to ordinary solvents, and within neurons may be much more
stable than single-copy “monomers” of
CPEB. They also seem to
actively sustain their population by serving as templates for the formation of
new oligomers from
free monomers in the vicinity.
Read full article from Daily News Analysis
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