COURTESY OF ANNA-KARIN GERDIN, THE SANGER INSTITUTE
Two new studies in mice show how to activate memories, and demonstrate that reliving a memory may impede new memory formation.
"Both [studies] use state-of-the-art molecular tools to show that activating neuronal networks engaged during learning is a stand-in for the original experience," neuroscientist Howard Eichenbaum of Boston University, who did not participate in the research, told ScienceNOW. "The findings support the idea that reengaging the neural networks activated during learning allows mental time travel."
In the first study, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University used mice genetically modified to express light-sensitive receptors on cells in the hippocampus during memory formation. The researchers could awaken the memory of unpleasant conditioning in mice by pulsing a laser, which stimulated the cells that ...
