Making Memories Last

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 week 6 days (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

When it comes to the neurobiology of memory, the hippocampus typically gets most of the credit. But although this brain region is crucial for recording new memories, like the name of someone you just met at a bar, people with a damaged hippocampus can still recall memories from days of old. Many neuroscientists believe this is because lasting memories get shifted to the cerebral cortex for permanent storage. Little is known about how this might happen, but a study in today's issue of Science provides some clues.

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New Gene for Alzheimer's Discovered

lily1984 submitted, created time 4 months 3 weeks (www.bloomberg.com)

Scientists have discovered a gene that raises the risk of late-onset Alzheimer's disease by as much as 77 percent and provides scientists with a second genetic target for developing new treatments for the disorder.

One copy of the gene, called calcium homeostasis modulator 1, or CALHM1, increases the likelihood of late-onset Alzheimer's by 44 percent, while two copies boost the risk 77 percent. About a quarter of the population has one copy, said study author Philippe Marambaud from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The research was published in the journal Cell

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Hormone blocks opiate damage

sea-maid submitted, created time 5 months 4 weeks (www.pnas.org)

Previous studies have shown that chronic opiates may inhibit cell growth and trigger apoptosis leading to impaired cognitive capabilities in both humans and other mammals. And these results suggest that the hormone is capable of preventing or even repairing morphine-induced damage to hippocampal cells

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Dementia Study-- Brain size may protect Alzheimer's patients from memory loss

Growing Up to Prozac: Drug makes new neurons mature faster

Sue Wu submitted, created time 9 months 1 week (www.sciencenews.org)

Peter Pan won't be pleased to hear the latest theory about how Prozac works. A new study shows that the antidepressant stimulates growth of neurons in the hippocampus and speeds the young brain cells toward maturity. The maturation process could be the mechanism by which the drug relieves depression.

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Adult Brain Cells Rediscover Their Inner Child

psychologist submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.medicalnewstoday.com)

Song and his colleagues tracked the chemical signals received by newly made nerve cells in the adult mouse hippocampus, a brain structure dedicated to learning and memory, by injecting virus particles to light up nerve progenitor cells. Any freshly made nerves glowed green and become permanently marked for later identification.

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Identification of Compartment- and Process-Specific Molecules Required for "Synaptic Tagging" during Long-Term Potentiation and Long-Term Depression in Hippocampal CA1

fiona submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.jneurosci.org)

Protein synthesis-dependent forms of hippocampal long-term potentiation (late LTP) and long-term depression (late LTD) are prominent cellular mechanisms underlying memory formation. Recent data support the hypothesis that neurons store relevant information in dendritic functional compartments during late LTP and late LTD rather than in single synapses. It has been suggested that processes of "synaptic tagging" are restricted to such functional compartments.

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Antidepressants stimulate new nerve cells in adult monkeys, may have implications for humans

psychologist submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.eurekalert.org)

In adult monkeys, an antidepressant treatment has induced new nerve cell growth in the hippocampus, a brain area responsible for learning and memory. A similar process may occur in humans, the research suggests, and may help explain the effectiveness of antidepressant treatments.

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Differential Regulation of AMPA Receptor Trafficking by Neurabin-Targeted Synaptic Protein Phosphatase-1 in Synaptic Transmission and Long-Term Depression in Hippocampus

badboy submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.jneurosci.org)

" Our studies elucidate that NrbI-targeted PP1, in response to distinct synaptic activities, regulates the synaptic trafficking of specific AMPAR subunits."

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Antisense Oligodeoxynucleotides for Estrogen Receptor-bold italic beta and alpha Attenuate Estradiol's Modulation of Affective and Sexual Behavior, Respectively

Luneetty submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.nature.com)

Estradiol (E2) modulates affective and socio-sexual behavior of female rodents. E2's functional effects may involve actions through alpha and beta isoforms of estrogen receptor (ERs). The importance of E2's actions at these isoforms for anxiety (open field, elevated plus maze), depression (forced swim test), and sexual behavior (lordosis) was investigated using an antisense oligonucleotide (AS-ODN) strategy.ERbeta and ERalpha may be required for E2's modulation of affective and sexual behavior, respectively.

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Presynaptic Fmr1 Genotype Influences the Degree of Synaptic Connectivity in a Mosaic Mouse Model of Fragile X Syndrome

medal submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.jneurosci.org)

"Almost all female and some male fragile X syndrome (FXS) patients are mosaic for expression of the FMR1 gene, yet all research in models of FXS has been in animals uniformly lacking Fmr1 expression."

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Bilateral Hippocampal Volume Increase in Patients with Bipolar Disorder and Short-term Lithium Treatment

diggman submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.nature.com)

Most previous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of patients with bipolar disorder (BD). Lithium (Li) is the reference-standard drug for BD and its role as an important agent in neuroprotection and neurogenesis has been documented in human and in animal studies

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Rats use mental schemas to speed learning

diggman submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (arstechnica.com)

Research in Science suggests that the process of consolidating these memories doesn't have to be gradual. Instead, if we have previous long-term memories that provide a framework for understanding the new information—a mental schema—then we can solidify new memories rapidly.

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Mesolimbic Novelty Processing in Older Adults

addict submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (cercor.oxfordjournals.org)

Normal aging is associated with neuronal loss in the dopaminergic midbrain (substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area, SN/VTA), a region that has recently been implicated in processing novel stimuli as part of a mesolimbic network including the hippocampus. The age-related structural degeneration of the mesolimbic system is quantified by using magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) and correlated it with mesolimbic hemodynamic responses (HRs) to stimulus novelty

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Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein Induces Synapse Loss through Acute Postsynaptic Translational Regulation

alpha submitted, created time 1 year 7 months (www.jneurosci.org)

"Fragile X syndrome, as well as other forms of mental retardation and autism, is associated with altered dendritic spine number and structure. Fragile X syndrome is caused by loss-of-function mutations in Fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), an RNA-binding protein that regulates protein synthesis in vivo."

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