Monday, April 30, 2007
Rodent Disneyland may help mice to regain memories
A way to restore lost memories by natural 'rewiring' of brain cells ? Maybe, but Alzheimer's has many papers but little progress.
Anyway .... researchers first placed the mice in a tank of water and trained them to find their way to a platform sunk just below the surface. After the mice had developed a long-term memory of the job, Tsai's team then induced p25 (a protein) in the rodents, which led to loss of neurons, learning ability and memory.
The mice were placed in a setting full of toys and wheels. When the stimulated mice were retested, the researchers found they did better at the memory task than before. "If memories can be recovered then that suggests they were never erased and indicates that perceived memory loss is likely to be due to an inability to retrieve memories," Tsai said.
After exploring the biological mechanism behind the improvement in mice placed in the enriched environment, the researchers took mice that had lost long-term memory and injected them with a drug that inhibited histone deacetylase, or HDAC. Tsai said that HDAC inhibitors appear to cause naturally the rewiring of neurons. i.e. the mice were better able to find the platform in the water.
Anyway .... researchers first placed the mice in a tank of water and trained them to find their way to a platform sunk just below the surface. After the mice had developed a long-term memory of the job, Tsai's team then induced p25 (a protein) in the rodents, which led to loss of neurons, learning ability and memory.
The mice were placed in a setting full of toys and wheels. When the stimulated mice were retested, the researchers found they did better at the memory task than before. "If memories can be recovered then that suggests they were never erased and indicates that perceived memory loss is likely to be due to an inability to retrieve memories," Tsai said.
After exploring the biological mechanism behind the improvement in mice placed in the enriched environment, the researchers took mice that had lost long-term memory and injected them with a drug that inhibited histone deacetylase, or HDAC. Tsai said that HDAC inhibitors appear to cause naturally the rewiring of neurons. i.e. the mice were better able to find the platform in the water.
# posted by uv : 8:57 PM
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