I extort from Baltic to Boardwalk, memories of injuries wounds and burns
Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have discovered a mechanism that controls the brain’s ability to create lasting memories. In experiments on genetically manipulated mice, they were able to switch on and off the animals’ ability to form lasting memories by adding a substance to their drinking water.
The ability to convert new sensory impressions into lasting memories in the brain is the basis for all learning. Much is known about the first steps of this process, those that lead to memories lasting a few hours, whereby altered signalling between neurons causes a series of chemical changes in the connections between nerve fibers, called synapses. However, less is understood about how the chemical changes in the synapses are converted into lasting memories stored in the cerebral cortex.
A research team at Karolinska Institutet has now discovered that signalling via a receptor molecule called nogo receptor 1 (NgR1) in the nerve membrane plays a key part in this process.
related { Traumatic memories can be erased. }
