Disir
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Memory loss is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's and heartbreaking for loved ones to watch progress. Gone are the details of a first love or a child's wobbly first steps. The achievements of a distinguished 30-year career. And the tall tales of travelling the globe that once had everyone rolling on the floor with laughter.
Scientists had assumed for a long time that the disease destroys how those memories are encoded and makes them disappear forever. But what if they weren't actually gone — just inaccessible?
A new paper published on Wednesday by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Nobel Prize-winning Susumu Tonegawa provides the first strong evidence of this possibility and raises the hope of future treatments that could reverse some of the ravages of the disease on memory.
"The important point is, this is a proof of concept," Tonegawa said. "That is, even if a memory seems to be gone, it is still there. It's a matter of how to retrieve it."
The research, described in the journal Nature, involved two groups of mice. One was a normal control and the other was genetically engineered to have Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Both groups were given a mild electric shock to their feet. The first group appeared to remember the trauma of the incident by showing fear when placed back in the box where they had been given the shock. The Alzheimer's mice, on the other hand, seemed to quickly forget what happened and did not have an upset reaction to the box.
Their reaction changed dramatically when the scientists stimulated tagged cells in their brains in the hippocampus — the part of the brain that encodes short-term memories — with a special blue light. When they were put back in the box following the procedure, their memories of the shock appeared to have returned, and they displayed the same fear as their healthy counterparts.
Read more: Alzheimer's 'lost memories' may one day be recoverable, scientists say
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
This is an awesome development.
Scientists had assumed for a long time that the disease destroys how those memories are encoded and makes them disappear forever. But what if they weren't actually gone — just inaccessible?
A new paper published on Wednesday by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Nobel Prize-winning Susumu Tonegawa provides the first strong evidence of this possibility and raises the hope of future treatments that could reverse some of the ravages of the disease on memory.
"The important point is, this is a proof of concept," Tonegawa said. "That is, even if a memory seems to be gone, it is still there. It's a matter of how to retrieve it."
The research, described in the journal Nature, involved two groups of mice. One was a normal control and the other was genetically engineered to have Alzheimer's-like symptoms. Both groups were given a mild electric shock to their feet. The first group appeared to remember the trauma of the incident by showing fear when placed back in the box where they had been given the shock. The Alzheimer's mice, on the other hand, seemed to quickly forget what happened and did not have an upset reaction to the box.
Their reaction changed dramatically when the scientists stimulated tagged cells in their brains in the hippocampus — the part of the brain that encodes short-term memories — with a special blue light. When they were put back in the box following the procedure, their memories of the shock appeared to have returned, and they displayed the same fear as their healthy counterparts.
Read more: Alzheimer's 'lost memories' may one day be recoverable, scientists say
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
This is an awesome development.
