ISTOCK, SELVANEGRAA new bioinformatics strategy called DEScan has enabled researchers to identify genomic regions that undergo changes in chromatin accessibility in response to learning, according to a report in Science Signaling yesterday (January 16). Examining hippocampal neurons from mice before and after fear conditioning revealed widespread changes in chromatin conformation, mainly toward a more open structure.
“This is a fascinating investigation into the epigenetic basis for plasticity in the adult nervous system,” David Sweatt, a pharmacologist at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the work, writes in an email to The Scientist. “The study is exceptionally comprehensive and utilizes cutting-edge technologies to interrogate the entire genome and assess sites of genetic plasticity in memory formation.”
Figuring out how epigenetic mechanisms within brain cells are linked to learning and memory is a subject of great interest to many researchers, including Washington State University’s Lucia Peixoto. But Peixoto’s epigenetic pursuits also have a medical motivation, she explains. “About 50 percent of people on the [autism] spectrum have learning disabilities . . . telling us that there must be a big overlap between ...
