(Press-News.org) The process we use to store memories is more complex than previously thought, New York University neuroscientists have found. Their research, which appears in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscores the challenges in addressing memory-related ailments, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
The researchers looked at memory consolidation and reconsolidation. Memory consolidation is the neurological process we undergo to store memories after an experience. However, memory is dynamic and changes when new experiences bring to mind old memories. As a result, the act of remembering makes the memory vulnerable until it is stored again—this process is called reconsolidation. During this period, new information may be incorporated into the old memory.
It has been well-established that the synthesis of new proteins within neurons is necessary for memory storage. More specifically, this process is important for stabilizing memories because it triggers the production of new proteins that are required for molecular and synaptic changes during both consolidation and reconsolidation.
The purpose of the NYU study was to determine if there were differences between memory consolidation and reconsolidation during protein synthesis. Similar comparative studies have been conducted, but those focused on elongation, one of the latter stages of protein synthesis; the PNAS research considered the initiation stage, or the first step of this process.
Using laboratory rats as subjects, the researchers used mild electric shocks paired with an audible tone to generate a specific associative fear memory and, with it, memory consolidation. They played the audible tone one day later—a step designed to initiate recall of the earlier fear memory and bring about reconsolidation. During both of these steps, the rats were injected with a drug designed to inhibit the initiation stage of protein synthesis.
Their results showed that the inhibitor could effectively interfere with memory consolidation, but had no impact on memory reconsolidation.
"Our results show the different effects of specifically inhibiting the initiation of protein synthesis on memory consolidation and reconsolidation, making clear these two processes have greater variation than previously thought," explained Eric Klann, a professor at NYU's Center for Neural Science and one of the study's co-authors. "Because addressing memory-related afflictions, such at PTSD, depends on first understanding the nature of memory formation and the playback of those memories, finding remedies may prove even more challenging than is currently recognized."
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The study's other co-authors included: Kiriana Cowansage, Joseph LeDoux, and Charles Hoeffer, who now holds an appointment at NYU School of Medicine.
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Are some children genetically tuned to be overweight, or is lifestyle to blame for childhood obesity?
Check-ups of 1,003 Michigan 6th graders in a school-based health program showed children who are obese were more likely to consume school lunch instead of a packed lunch from home and spend two hours a day watching TV or playing a video game.
The results were compiled by the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center and suggests unhealthy habits are feeding the childhood obesity trend.
"For the extremely overweight child, genetic screening may ...
When the body can't distinguish its right side from its left during development, a child can develop a condition called heterotaxy in which the heart is severely malformed, leading to congenital heart disease. To improve survival in these children, researchers at Yale School of Medicine sought to identify the genes that cause heterotaxy. They have shown in a new study that patients with heterotaxy have considerably more copy number variations (CNVs) on their genomes than do control patients.
The findings are published January 31 in Proceedings of the National Academy ...
The presence of introns in genes requires cells to process "messenger RNA" molecules before synthesizing proteins, a process that is costly and often error-prone. It was long believed that this was simply part of the price organisms paid for the flexibility to create new types of protein but recent work has made it clear that introns themselves have a number of important functions. And so attention is gradually shifting to asking why some organisms have so few introns and others so many.
It seems likely that new introns are added to DNA when double-stranded DNA breaks ...
The next big thing in medical diagnostics could be minutes particles of rust, iron oxide, coated with the material from which sand is formed, silicon dioxide. These magnetic nanoparticles, a mere 29 to 230 nanometers across, can be used to trap antibodies to the virus that causes cervical cancer and to the bacteria that causes potentially lethal diarrhea.
According to scientists in Vietnam, it is relatively straightforward to immobilize on nanoparticles, synthetic or monoclonal antibodies that respond to the human papilloma virus, HPV18, and the toxic gut microbe Escherichia ...
Bulky present generation satellite dishes and ground terminals could become relics of the past thanks to research currently being conducted for the European Space Agency (ESA) by Queen's University Belfast's Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) aimed at developing discrete self-aligning flat antennas.
It is hoped the work could lead to a one-size-fits all solution that could be optimised for a variety of technologies presently used to deliver satellite broadband and television to travellers as well as customers in broadband 'not spots'.
ECIT ...
Research by the University of Exeter has revealed that ants have a big impact on their local environment as a result of their activity as 'ecosystem engineers' and predators.
The study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, found that ants have two distinct effects on their local environment.
Firstly, through moving of soil by nest building activity and by collecting food they affect the level of nutrients in the soil. This can indirectly impact the local populations of many animal groups, from decomposers such as Collembola, to species much higher up the food ...
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common malignancy in the world and is estimated to cause approximately half a million deaths annually. Undoubtedly, the best available treatment for all liver tumors is complete surgical resection. However, the synthetic somatostatin analogue octreotide has been found effective in inhibiting tumor growth in a variety of experimental models. It has been reported that octreotide inhibits the proliferation and induces apoptosis of different HCC cell lines in vitro. The mechanisms of apoptosis induction however are not well understood.
A ...
T-regulatory lymphocytes (Tregs) are a subset of T lymphocytes that are involved in the mechanism of immunotolerance to self- and allo-antigens. Activity of these cells is one of the mechanisms of immune evasion of tumors, which inhibits the antitumor activity of effector cells. Tregs are among the tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and circulate in the peripheral blood. In various cancer types, increased prevalence of Tregs has been observed, and in some studies, this has been reported as a prognostic factor.
A research article published on January 21, 2011 in the World ...
Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction (SOD) is a pathological syndrome that is usually classified into the biliary type or the pancreatic type according to the Milwaukee criteria. However, this classification has some drawbacks in clinical practice, some of which result in flawed classification and failure to properly guide diagnosis and treatment.
A research article published on January 21, 2011 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The authors proposed a new classification system for SOD according to anatomy, symptoms, endoscope tests and radiological ...
Patients undergoing liver surgery have long been considered to be at low risk of venous thromboembolism. However, pulmonary embolism has recently emerged as an increasingly frequent and potentially fatal complication following liver resections.
A research article published on January 21, 2011 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The authors shed a new light on this discrepancy by reporting two patients who developed thrombi in their hepatic veins following hepatectomy.
The report indicated that thrombosis may occur in hepatic veins after ...
