Memories are not only in the brain, human cell study finds
by James Devitt, New York University
An NYU researcher administers chemical signals to non-neural cells grown in a culture plate. Credit: Nikolay Kukushkin
It’s common knowledge that our brains—and, specifically, our brain cells—store memories. But a team of scientists has discovered that cells from other parts of the body also perform a memory function, opening new pathways for understanding how memory works and creating the potential to enhance learning and to treat memory-related afflictions.
“Learning and memory are generally associated with brains and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can learn and form memories, too,” explains New York University’s Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Nature Communications.
The research sought to better understand if non-brain cells help with memory by borrowing from a long-established neurological property—the massed-spaced effect—which shows that we tend to retain information better when studied in spaced intervals rather than in a single, intensive session—better known as cramming for a test.
In the research, the scientists replicated learning over time by studying two types of non-brain human cells in a laboratory (one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue) and exposing them to different patterns of chemical signals—just like brain cells are exposed to patterns of neurotransmitters when we learn new information.
In response, the non-brain cells turned on a “memory gene”—the same gene that brain cells turn on when they detect a pattern in the information and restructure their connections in order to form memories.
To monitor the memory and learning process, the scientists engineered these non-brain cells to make a glowing protein, which indicated when the memory gene was on and when it was off.
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