Memory study sheds light on amnesia
Print Edition
RESEARCHERS have gained new understanding on the workings of amnesia through research that used light to revive lost memories in mice, a study published on Thursday reported.
Amnesia remains a controversial subject in the field of neuroscience, with some researchers arguing that it occurs when cells are damaged and memory cannot be stored, while others believe that the memories are simply blocked and cannot be recalled.
The study, published in the US journal Science, indicated that memories do in fact remain, but are simply unable to be recollected.
“The majority of researchers have favored the storage theory, but we have shown in this paper that this majority theory is probably wrong,” researcher Susumu Tonegawa of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.
“Amnesia is a problem of retrieval impairment,” the Nobel Prize-winning scientist said.
The study, carried out by researchers at MIT and the Riken Brain Science Institute in Japan, used blue light pulses to stimulate “memory engrams,” the neurons that are activated as memories are formed.
When these engrams are activated in normal day-to-day life by stimuli such as an image, smell or taste, memories are triggered.
But scientists doing the research attached a protein to these neurons to enable them to be activated by light.
The findings “will stimulate future research on the biology of memory and its clinical restoration,” Tonegawa said.
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