Nerve cells form long-term memories with the help of an inflammatory response, study in mice finds.

When a long-term memory forms, some brain cells experience a rush of electrical activity so strong that it snaps their DNA. Then, an inflammatory response kicks in, repairing this damage and helping to cement the memory, a study in mice shows.

The findings, published on 27 March in Nature1, are “extremely exciting”, says Li-Huei Tsai, a neurobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge who was not involved in the work. They contribute to the picture that forming memories is a “risky business”, she says. Normally, breaks in both strands of the double helix DNA molecule are associated with diseases including cancer. But in this case, the DNA damage-and-repair cycle offers one explanation for how memories might form and last.

It also suggests a tantalizing possibility: this cycle might be faulty in people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, causing a build-up of errors in a neuron’s DNA, says study co-author Jelena Radulovic, a neuroscientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

  • Neato@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    22·
    9 months ago

    Life is so fucking wild. Like how the hell many weird mutations had to happen for this to work and not result in instant death?

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      91·
      9 months ago

      An uncountable number. Billions and billions of simple multicellular organisms reproducing, until one (or some) of them develop this mechanism and use it to drastically increase their survival and chance at reproduction.

      It makes me wonder at what stage of evolution it appeared. I’m thinking the simple wormlike animals of the early Cambrian era.

    • loppy@kbin.social
      8·
      9 months ago

      Looks like the 2015 research was with isolated neurons, whereas the 2024 research is with live mice and gives actual evidence that memory is affected.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
      5·
      9 months ago

      Interesting. Maybe this is just a deeper dive into that?

      The team pinpointed the cause of the inflammation: a protein called TLR9, which triggers an immune response to DNA fragments floating around the insides of cells.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
      6·
      9 months ago

      We know a lot about connectivity” between neurons “and neural plasticity, but not nearly as much about what happens inside neurons”, she says.

      I don’t think it’s necessarily describing that so much as what happens to the neurons during that process.

      Granted, I only posted the article because I thought it was an interesting read and don’t necessarily understand a lot of the finer points of it.