Nat Commun: Selectivere Reactivation of Nerve Cells to Retrieve Memory

, June 7, 2020 /
Biovalley
BIOON/-- Experiments in mice conducted by a team of scientists led by DrAna Oliveira at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, have shown that selectively increasing levels of a protein in nerve cells that plays a key role in memory storage can improve memoryThe protein in charge is Dnmt3a2, a geneticfactor called epigeneticthat chemically alters the genome and affects the memory processBy increasing the level of Dnmt3a2, researchers from the Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience were able to regulate the reactivation of the neurons involved, in fact quite accuratelystore a lot of memories in a person's lifeIt is now thought that each memory has its own unique form in the brain, encoded by neurons, which become active when new information is obtained"This behavior is like a puzzle with many parts, in which case it's a nerve cell pattern that encodes information, " the researchers explained"To recall a memory, enough of the neurons in the brain must be reactivated, putting together pieces of the puzzle and recreating the complete memory"
picture source: Ana MOliveir
In mouse experiments, neuroscientists at the University of Heidelberg found that when levels of specific proteins in these neuronal cells were selectively increased, memory resilience improvedThe protein is Dnmt3a2, a geneticfactor called epigeneticthat can chemically alter DNADnmt3a2 increases the production of specific proteins that affect memoryfor the study, DrOliveira's team trained the lab mice on Pavlov's conditional reflex tasks and marked the nerve cells in the hippocampus associated with the memory of the learning taskAs a second step, the researchers increased the levels of the Dnmt3a2 protein in these cellsDr Oliveira explained: "A slight increase alone was enough to improve memory performance in mice because 'right' neurons, those that need to be recalled, are better reactivatedIt's fascinating to see that we can precisely adjust this reactivation process"
in their previous study, researchers have shown that the Dnmt3a2 protein can restore age-relatedcognitive dysfunctionand promote the "elimination" of traumatic memory in miceThey hope their findings open a new avenue for future studies of nerve cells that selectively influence memory performanceDr Oliveira's team is studying molecular mechanisms that play an important role in memory formation and retentionTheir latest work is carried out as part of collaborative research center 1134"s Functional Integration: Cell components, pattern activity, and plasticity that activate neurons in local networksTheir findings were published in the journal Nature Communications (BioValleyBioon.com) References: reactivating nerve cells to a memory Kubra Gulmez Karaca et al.
Neuronal ensemble-specific DNA methylation s meddhation , Communications Nature (2020) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14498-4