Scientists hail breakthrough in brain study

Published on Tuesday 22 April 2008 20:31

A TEAM of scientists have made "a major step forward" in understanding how the memory works, a journal reported yesterday.

Experimenting on rats, researchers at the University of Bristol blocked mechanisms that control the way nerve cells in the brain communicate, preventing the creatures' ability to visually recognise items and surroundings.

The actual mechanisms and changes that occur in the brain and allow learning to happen are still not very well understood, researchers say.

Findings identified cellular and molecular mechanisms in the brain that may provide a key to understanding processes of recognition memory, the journal Neuron reports.

Zafar Bashir, professor of cellular neuroscience at the University of Bristol, tested a hypothesis that specialised junctions between nerve cells in the brain, known as synapses, hold the secrets to learning and memory.

Strength of communication between synapses is called "synaptic plasticity" and these mechanisms may be important for learning and memory.

By blocking the same molecular mechanism that controls synaptic plasticity in rats, visual recognition memory in the animals was prevented.

Dr Bashir said: "This is a major step forward in our understanding of recognition memory.

"We have been able to show that key processes controlling synaptic communication are also vital in learning and memory. The next step is to try to understand the processes that enable visual memories to be held in our brains for such long periods of time, and why these mechanisms begin to break down in old age."