Mice with 'amnesia' have memories restored by light - The Washington Post - 0 views
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New research shows that "lost" memories lurk in the brain waiting to be found again -- in mice, anyway. In a study published Thursday in Science, researchers were able to reactivate memories they'd suppressed, indicating that retrograde amnesia -- where memories are lost after brain trauma -- may be more of a memory retrieval problem than an actual loss of data.
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Based on their findings, the researchers believe that "lost" memories may still leave engrams active in the brain.
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When they extended the search further, they realized that other regions of the brain, including the amygdala, where where fear-based memories can be found, were also involved in this network. The researchers were therefore able to retrieve the memories because other connections in the brain — connections that were unaffected by the drug, but inaccessible without the light treatment — were storing information related to the shock treatment as well.
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