Math boosts brain research
2015-08-10
(Press-News.org) Human memory is the result of different mental processes, such as learning, remembering and forgetting. However, these distinct processes cannot be observed directly. Researchers at the University of Basel now succeeded at describing them using computational models. The scientists were thus for the first time able to identify gene sets responsible for steering specific memory processes. Their results have been published in the current issue of the journal PNAS.
Thanks to our memory we are able to learn foreign languages, solve exams and remember beautiful moments from the past. To ensure optimal memory performance, several distinct cognitive processes have to cooperate. Information is first learned and then stored. Later, when we want to remember them, we depend on a properly functioning retrieval process.
If all these various memory processes are controlled by the same or by different genes and molecular mechanisms has so far been mostly unknown. One reason for this, is the fact that many of these processes are not amenable to direct measurement and have therefore remained inaccessible for science.
The mathematician Dr. Gediminas Luksys from the transfaculty research platform at the Psychiatric University Clinics Basel and the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Basel has now been able to successfully describe the various human memory processes for the first time. The study used data of over 1700 adults. Thanks to the computational model, the researchers were able to measure the processes and to conduct distinct genetic analyses for the specific mental processes.
Individual processes are based on different gene sets
The results show that distinct genetic profiles underlie specific memory processes: The study reports, for example, associations between a transporter protein set and the process of learning as well as between a cell adhesion set and the process of memory storage. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the complex processes of human memory and could lead to the development of new treatment therapies for various memory disorders in the future.
INFORMATION:
The current study is part of the Basel Genetics Memory Project led by Prof. Dominique de Quervain and Prof. Andreas Papassotiropoulos. The two co-heads of the transfaculty research platform are dedicated to getting these fundamental research results transfered to therapy projects as fast as possible.
Original source
Gediminas Luksys, Matthias Fastenrath, David Coynel, Virginie Freytag, Leo Gschwind, Angela Heck, Frank Jessen, Wolfgang Maier, Annette Milnik, Steffi G. Riedel-Heller, Martin Scherer, Klara Spalek, Christian Vogler, Michael Wagner, Steffen Wolfsgruber, Andreas Papassotiropoulos, and Dominique J.-F. de Quervain
Computational dissection of human episodic memory reveals mental process-specific genetic profiles
PNAS (2015), doi: 10.1073/pnas.1500860112
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-08-10
Scientists have found that a newly identified and highly infectious tadpole disease is found in a diverse range of frog populations across the world. The discovery sheds new light on some of the threats facing fragile frog populations, which are in decline worldwide.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, led by the University of Exeter and the Natural History Museum, describes the molecular methods used to test frog tadpoles for a newly identified infectious agent.
Tadpoles from six countries across three continents were ...
2015-08-10
A new study led by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego defines the core set of genes and functions that a bacterial cell needs to sustain life. The research, which answers the fundamental question of what minimum set of functions bacterial cells require to survive, could lead to new cell engineering approaches for E. coli and other microorganisms, the researchers said.
The findings are published online in the early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of August 10, 2015.
This core set of genes is "the smallest common ...
2015-08-10
Astronomers at the 29th International Astronomical Union General Assembly will announce on August 14 the discovery of a new transiting "circumbinary" planet, bringing the number of such known planets into double digits. A circumbinary planet orbits two stars, and like the fictional planet "Tatooine" from Star Wars, this planet has two suns in its sky. The discovery marks an important milestone and comes only four years after the first Kepler circumbinary planet was detected. Once thought to be rare or even impossible, these ten discoveries confirm that such planets are ...
2015-08-10
COLUMBIA, Mo. - Remarriages often combine two families into one stepfamily unit. When that stepfamily unit dissolves after a divorce, little is known about the relationships between former stepparents and stepchildren. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences found stepchildren's views of former stepparents depended on emotional reactions to the divorce, patterns of support or resource exchanges, and parental encouragement or discouragement to continue step-relationships. Whether stepchildren maintained relationships with their ...
2015-08-10
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Researchers who have revealed a highly efficient way that bacteria use toxins to interrupt the immune response say that until now, the trickery of these toxins has been underappreciated in science.
Bacteria harm the body by releasing toxins - proteins that are exceptionally effective poisons. Always targeting essential molecules, toxins typically go after molecules that are either scarce or whose role is to send important signals. In both cases, only a small number of toxins is required to cause damage.
In contrast, some toxins appear to deviate from ...
2015-08-10
Alexandria, Va., USA - Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published two reports including a critical review titled "Diet and Dental Caries - the Pivotal Role of Free Sugars Reemphasized." In this study, authors Aubrey Sheiham, University College London, England; and W. Philip James, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, England, demonstrate the sensitivity of cariogenesis (the development of caries) to even very low sugars intakes. In this critical review, the authors reviewed the literature on the role of sucrose ...
2015-08-10
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified a molecular partnership in pancreatic cancer cells that might help to explain how the disease spreads -- metastasizes -- in some cases. Their findings reveal urgently needed new targets to treat pancreatic cancer, which strikes nearly 50,000 people in the U.S. each year and has only a 5 percent survival rate five years after diagnosis.
One of the molecular partners is annexin A2, a protein that scientists say was already linked to poor survival rates in these cancers. In a report published in the Aug. ...
2015-08-10
(Broadcast-quality video and infographics available with this story)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- With more kids online and using cell phones at increasingly younger ages, two issues have quickly climbed higher on the public's list of major health concerns for children across the U.S: sexting and Internet safety.
Compared with 2014, Internet safety rose from the eighth to the fourth biggest problem, ahead of school violence and smoking, in the 2015 annual survey of top children's health concerns conducted by the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's ...
2015-08-10
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 10, 2015 - A microscope being developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory will allow scientists studying biological and synthetic materials to simultaneously observe chemical and physical properties on and beneath the surface.
The Hybrid Photonic Mode-Synthesizing Atomic Force Microscope is unique, according to principal investigator Ali Passian of ORNL's Quantum Information System group. As a hybrid, the instrument, described in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, combines the disciplines of nanospectroscopy and ...
2015-08-10
In emerging economies, where real estate is expensive and space is limited, there has been a boom in multiplex movie theater construction fueled by the conviction that small screens with many show times will increase ticket sales. But new research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business finds that the strategy doesn't always work.
In the paper Quality vs. Variety: Trading Larger Screens for More Shows in the Era of Digital Cinema by Chicago Booth Assistant Professor of Marketing Anita Rao and Stanford University Professor Wesley R. Hartmann, researchers ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Math boosts brain research
