Triggering a memory: scientists learn how to reboot recollections - 0 views
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anonymous on 30 May 12"Scientists say they have found a way to activate the brain cells that trigger particular memories, according to research published today in the journal Science. Researchers at MIT employed optogenetics, a branch of science that uses light to stimulate molecules, to show that memories reside in specific brain cells, and that activating a tiny fraction of brain cells can revive the entire memory. The study was performed on mice, but the researchers say it is a powerful demonstration that memories are tangible and are physically stored in a particular part of the brain. "We demonstrate that behaviour based on high-level cognition, such as the expression of a specific memory, can be generated in a mammal by highly specific physical activation of a specific small subpopulation of brain cells, in this case by light," said Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at MIT and lead author of the study. In the early 1900s, the Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield found that when he electrically stimulated certain neurons in the hippocampus area of the brain, his patients vividly recalled whole events. Until now, however, scientists have been unable to prove that the direct reactivation of the hippocampus was enough to cause memory recall."