Protein Plays Role in Memory, Study Suggests

A study in rats sheds light on how the brain puts some memories in long-term storage, scientists say.

The study focused on a protein called CREB, which is found in the nucleus of brain cells and which turns other genes on or off when it is activated.

Scientists already knew CREB must be activated by a chemical modification before long-term memories can form. But nobody knows what genes CREB acts on to affect memory.

In the new report, scientists propose that to create at least some forms of long-term memory, CREB must be activated in a brain structure called the hippocampus in response to signals that arrive through a bundle of nerves called the fornix.

The hippocampus was already known to be involved in learning and memory. It’s not known what the critical signals that come through the fornix are.

The work is reported in the April issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience by Cristina Alberini, Mark Bear and colleagues at Brown University.

They exposed rats to a standard laboratory test of long-term learning. In some animals, the fornix was damaged. These animals showed poor long-term memory and lack of CREB activation in the hippocampus. In contrast, animals without the damage showed CREB activation, which apparently cemented their memories.