Ted Abel of the University of Pennsylvania explained some of molecular processes involved in creating long-term memories. Some of his lab’s work focuses on a binding protein (called CREB binding protein) that’s been found to play a central role in memory storage. Abel and colleagues have also observed a gene called Nr4a2 that’s critical to memory enhancement.
“In a sense, this is the field where nurture meets nature — where our experience interacts with our DNA and our genes,” Abel said.
Moving only slightly up the biological line, Michael Fanselow of University of California, Los Angeles, discussed the interactions between several areas of the brain involved in memory storage. Much of Fanselow’s work involves contextual fear memories in rats; in these cases, the amygdala is the hub for the fear that occurs, and the hippocampus is the part that creates the painful association with the context or place.
While the amygdala is vital to the retrieval of fearful memories, Fanselow and colleagues have found that other brain regions — notably, two areas in the prefrontal cortext — can pick up the slack for the hippocampus. Rats whose hippocampus was surgically damaged, for instance, still feared a place where their bad memories were made.
“In a sense, this is the field where nurture meets nature — where our experience interacts with our DNA and our genes,” Abel said.
“It seems when you don’t have a hippocampus and you try to learn something about context, other brain regions can compensate,” Fanselow said.
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