December 22, 2014

Cure For Memory Loss Close



A nerve cell. David Glanzman believes that the nervous system could regenerate lost synaptic connections.
Photo: Alamy


[From article]
"Long-term memory is not stored at the synapse," said David Glanzman, the study's co-author and professor of integrative biology and physiology and of neurobiology at UCLA. "That's a radical idea, but that's where the evidence leads. The nervous system appears to be able to regenerate lost synaptic connections. If you can restore the synaptic connections, the memory will come back. It won't be easy, but I believe it's possible."
[. . .]
He added that the research could be a major breakthrough for Alzheimer's sufferers as even though the disease destroys synapses in the brain, memories might not necessarily destroyed.
"As long as the neurons are still alive, the memory will still be there, which means you may be able to recover some of the lost memories in the early stages of Alzheimer's," said Prof Glanzman.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11307411/Cure-for-memory-loss-could-be-on-the-horizon.html

Cure for memory loss could be on the horizon
Breakthrough study could hold the key to ending memory loss and offer a lifeline to Alzheimer's sufferers
By Telegraph Reporter
10:02AM GMT 22 Dec 2014

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http://elifesciences.org/content/3/e03896

Reinstatement of long-term memory following erasure of its behavioral and synaptic expression in Aplysia
Shanping Chen, Diancai Cai, Kaycey Pearce, Philip Y-W Sun, Adam C Roberts, David L Glanzman
University of California, Los Angeles, United States; David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, United States; Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, United States

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