Council Chronicle

Monday, January 25, 2021
Log in
  • National News
  • Business & Economy
  • Technology
  • Science
  • Health
  • About CC
    • Our Team
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy GDPR
    • Terms of Use

Pages

  • About Council Chronicle
  • Contact Us
  • Our Team
  • Privacy Policy GDPR
  • Terms of Use

Recent Posts

  • Former Wife of Prolific Arizona Serial Killer Speaks Up First Time after Scottsdale Suicide June 29, 2018
  • Indiana Couple Arrested After Authorities Discovered Cruel Punishment Device in Home June 28, 2018
  • Schizophrenic Oregon Man Who Was Seen Carrying His Mother’s Head Committed to Psychiatric Facility June 27, 2018
  • Texas Lawmen Looking for Four Suspect Who Tortured Child During Home Invasion June 27, 2018
  • Retirement Home Resident Reported Fake Fire to Draw In Firefighters and Shoot Them June 26, 2018
  • Arkansas Man Kills Wife, Sticks Body In Chest Freezer Before Committing Suicide June 26, 2018
  • West Virginia Man Arrested After He Tried to Baptize Family by Drowning Them in the Bathtub June 25, 2018

Researchers Restore Lost Memories In Mice

June 1, 2015 By Melanie Quintal Leave a Comment

Email, RSS Follow

Restore Lost Memories In Mice

A new study has found that memories that have been lost due to tragic accidents, psychological trauma, stress or disease, can be restored using light to reactivate the damaged brain cells.

In the study published earlier this week, on Thursday, May 28, 2015, in the journal Science, MIT scientists inform that they’ve managed to retrieve lost memories in mice by using technology known as optogenetics.

As the name suggests, optogenetics is a process that combines optics with genetics in order to control well defined occurrences “within specific cells of living tissue”.

Susumu Tonegawa, professor in Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Department of Biology, revealed that their goal was to test whether or not memories lost to retrograde amnesia are completely erased from the brain, or merely suppressed, unable to be accessed actively, voluntarily. After all, Alzheimer’s patients still have occasional moments of lucidity even though the disease attacks their brains and makes them forgetful.

Researchers have been debating for decades whether or not, retrograde amnesia – a condition notorious for plaguing people who have suffered traumatic injury, stress, or who suffer from a disease such as Alzheimer’s – is caused because of damage inflicted specific brain cells, which would mean that the brain would no longer be able to store the memory that the damaged brain cells were responsible for, or if access to said memory is simply blocked somehow.

Previous studies have suggested the somewhere in the brain there’s a group of neurons that are activated when a person acquires new memories, causing long-lasting physical or chemical changes in the brain.

The MIT scientists found that this group of neurons, called memory engram cells, does in fact exist in the hippocampus. If they are to be activated subsequently using a trigger such as a specific smell or a specific sound, the entire memory is retrieved.

Susumu Tonegawa stressed that “The majority of researchers have favored the storage theory, but we have shown in this paper that this majority theory is probably wrong. Amnesia is a problem of retrieval impairment”.

For their experiment, the researchers first trained some mice to associate a somewhat mild foot shock with a specific freezing environment, which they called chamber A. After enough time, the trained mice would freeze to death into chamber even without the foot shock.

Then, some mice trained to associate the foot shock with freezing were given a chemical known as anisomycin, which induces retrograde amnesia. As a measure of control, a second group of trained mice were given saline.

The results were as expected. Mice with retrograde amnesia did not freeze when returning to the chamber. This suggests that they had forgotten the specific memory that previously linked the learned behavior to the chamber.

The next step was to move the mice into a neutral environment, which they called chamber B. They used blue light pulses in order to selectively reactivate the brain cells that had been genetically labeled in the previous faze, when they induced retrograde amnesia.

After the cells were reactivated, the association between the foot shock and the freezing behavior returned, and they started dying again, just like the control group that had received saline.

The inevitable conclusion was the memories are not erased in those with retrograde amnesia, they are simply “inaccessible for recall”.

Image Source: chatterbachs.files.com

Email, RSS Follow

Filed Under: Science

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 18 other subscribers

Recent Articles

ethics in dictionary highlighted

NIH Will Examine Ethical Problems of One of Their Studies

March 27, 2018 By Adam Martin Leave a Comment

biomutant character

Eleven-Minutes Long Biomutant Trailer Prepares You for Amazing Gameplay and Mechanics

August 26, 2017 By Adam Martin Leave a Comment

intime alibaba

Intime May Be Acquired By Its Founder And Alibaba

January 11, 2017 By Jesse Skelton Leave a Comment

Newborn baby

A Woman Gave Birth to Baby After Fertilizing Frozen Ovary

December 16, 2016 By Lee Raulin Leave a Comment

Parkes radio telescope

Hunting Aliens with Parkes Radio Telescope

November 11, 2016 By Ben Beckstrom Leave a Comment

man suffering from election season stress

Stressed Out? Here Are 7 Ways to Get Rid of Election Season Stress

October 19, 2016 By Adam Martin Leave a Comment

Disney World wants to prevent fraud.

Disney World prevents fraud by scanning children’s fingers

September 8, 2016 By Adam Martin Leave a Comment

artificial intelligence

How will the Artificial Intelligence will affect our life by 2030?

September 3, 2016 By Adam Martin Leave a Comment

opera sync

Opera Sync resets passwords after it was hacked

August 30, 2016 By Adam Martin Leave a Comment

viping

Why are teens viping – flavours or nicotine?

August 26, 2016 By Dustin Smith Leave a Comment

sex abuse

Doctors in sex abuse cases return to work. What happens with their victims?

August 25, 2016 By Adam Martin Leave a Comment

affection

Affection or food – which is more important for a dog?

August 19, 2016 By Adam Martin Leave a Comment

Chipotle restaurant

Chipotle to Open its First Burger Joint

July 30, 2016 By Ben Beckstrom Leave a Comment

Chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A Rolls Out Protein-Packed Grill Breakfast Sandwich

July 20, 2016 By Ben Beckstrom Leave a Comment

Related Articles

  • Two neutron stars colliding, forming a gravitational wave

    Are Colliding Wormholes the Real Producers of Gravitational Waves? (Study)

    Jun 15, 2018
  • Trepanation

    Ancient Peruvian Doctors Better at Trepanation Than Civil War Surgeons, New Study Finds

    Jun 13, 2018
  • Songbirds

    UK and Germany Biologists Closer to Understanding How Two-Way Communication Works in the Animal Kingdom

    Jun 6, 2018
  • nile crocodiles on white sand in a museum

    Crocodiles Listen to Bach as Researchers Study Their Brains in New Experiment (Study)

    May 9, 2018
  • view of coast from isle of skye

    Scientists Discover Rare, Giant Dinosaur Tracks in Scotland (Study)

    Apr 5, 2018
  • Intelligent Vehicles

    Stanford to Spearhead Intelligent Vehicles Revolution with Cars that can See Around the Corner

    Mar 7, 2018
  • Floating robot and ISS

    Floating Robot To Join the ISS Crew in June

    Mar 5, 2018
  • exploding star

    First Ever Photo of a Star Exploding Captured by an Amateur Photographer

    Feb 26, 2018
  • little skate at the bottom of the ocean

    Did Ancient Fish Start Walking Before Even Leaving the Ocean? (Study)

    Feb 12, 2018
  • Mayan pyramid in Guatemala

    Laser Technology Reveals More Maya Ruins in Guatemala

    Feb 4, 2018

Categories

  • Breaking News
  • Business & Economy
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • National News
  • Nature
  • Science
  • Technology
  • World News

Copyright © 2021 CouncilChronicle.com

About · Terms of Use · Privacy Policy · Contact

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more.