Brain Bites
Breaking Research
by Janet Zadina on 05/03/23Albert Einstein College of Medicine researchers have found an explanation of why memories last. Dr. Singer, a cell biologist, studied the proteins involved in memory. Complicated! It was known that memories are stored in the hippocampus and form when repeated neural stimulation strengthens the synapses connected neurons. It takes several hours to form a lasting memory.
They found that some of the proteins reactivate in cycles.
Dr. Singer uses an example of memorizing a poem and concludes that “To make a lasting memory requires that you read the poem repeatedly and each reading can be thought of as an intermittent stimulus that adds memory-building protein to the synapse.” Fire it until you wire it, as I always say!
