Scientists have created short-term memory "in vitro"
Last reviewed: 17.10.2021
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Ben Strawbridge, a professor of neurology and physiology / biophysics, and Robert Haidu, a fourth-year student at the Western Reserve University's Keise School of Medicine, managed to discover how artificial short-term memory can be induced in isolated brain tissues.
"For the first time, a way of storing information within seconds has been found directly in the brain tissue," says Dr. Strawbridge. "This discovery paves the way for further studies of the specific activity of the brain that forms short-term memory."
Memory is often divided into two categories: declarative (the ability to remember for a short or long time such facts as names, places and events) and implicit (allows you to acquire skills and skills, for example, to play musical instruments).
In their study, Ben Strawbridge and Robert Hyde focused on short-term declarative memory. They set a goal to better study the mechanism of this type of memory, which allows, for example, to memorize telephone numbers or e-mail addresses.
Using isolated pieces of rodent brain tissue, the researchers proved the possibility of forming short-term memory in vitro, that is, outside the living organism.
Scientists worked on brain tissue with four different stimuli. Evidence of brain reaction to this stimulus was changes in the activity of brain cells. The changes were specific for each of the four stimuli. It turned out that neural chains contained in small isolated areas of the brain, called the hippocampus, maintain a memory of the effect of a particular stimulus for ten seconds. The brain outside the living organism distinguished two temporal stimuli in the same way as a person can distinguish two different musical compositions.
The results of this study can be of great practical importance. An analysis of the mechanisms of memory functioning should help to understand how such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease affect memory. Further research in this direction can be useful for developing new, more effective methods of treating memory impairments associated with aging.