While a " Men In Black"-stylememory erasermay still be some way off , a squad of researchers from Oxford University has managed to successfully delete associatory memories in mouse . Their oeuvre bestow greatly to our understanding of how the brainpower creates and stores memories , and open up up novel possibility for developing novel therapies to treat condition such as drug addiction and post - traumatic stress disorder .
Associative memoriesrefer to the process of remembering the human relationship between two unrelated phenomenon , such as when a fussy strain reminds us of a certain person , or when a smell ‘ takes us back ’ to a specific lieu . While these are normally harmless , they can play a pregnant persona in perpetuating substance addiction , as certainenvironmental cuestrigger a need to use a drug .
To see if these connections can be erase , scientists used a trailing molecule to determine which nerve cell in the brains of mice became spark as they familiarized themselves with a particular environment . Previous oeuvre has shown that nerve cell calledplace cubicle , which are discover in a area called thehippocampus , contribute to the formation , storage and recall of spacial memories , essentially creating mental maps of our surroundings .
As the mice became progressively intimate with their natural enclosure , sure place prison cell begin to show enhanced activity , argue that they were driving the gnawer ’ computer storage of this particular blank . Once these cells had been identified , the investigator direct the mice to give rise light-colored - sensitive protein that allowed them to twist these particular place cells on and off by flashing a light .
Hippocampal neuron phone place cells are creditworthy for storing spacial memories . Andrej Vodolazhskyi / Shutterstock
They then encouraged the mice to form associatory memories , by put a cocaine resolution in a sleeping room and a saline solution solution in an identical adjacent chamber . Over clip , the mouse get to assort the relevant area with the cocain , and showed an increased penchant to head directly for that sleeping room while ignore the other . In other words , they form an associative storage between the chamber and the experience of taking cocain .
However , when the researchers used light to deactivate the place cell drive this memory , the mice intercept showing this orientation for the cocain - containing way , as if they had forgotten the tie between this bedroom and the drug . This does not mean that the mice had lost their discernment for cocain , but simply that a picky environmental pool stick that antecedently contributed to their drug - taking behaviour had been wipe out .
report their finding in the journalNature Neuroscience , the authors describe how the deactivation of the situation jail cell slang this associative memory also sparked the energizing of an entirely dissimilar band of nerve cell , indicating that the cognitive process had somehow return a shift to an “ alternative hippocampal mathematical function . ” In other language , new neuron take over so as to allow the mice to continue navigating and remembering their environs , but without the cocaine - space memory .
While more work is need to refine this outgrowth and make up one’s mind whether or not it can be apply to man , the study author say that their research ply substantial evidence for theengramtheory , which holds that computer storage are physically bait into the head ’s neural circuitry .
