Memories Are Not Only in the Brain
Study shows kidney and nerve tissue cells learn and make
memories in ways similar to neurons
Nov 7, 2024
James Devitt
https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2024/november/memories-are-not-only-in-the-brain--new-research-finds.html
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It’s
common knowledge that our brains—and, specifically, our brain cells—store
memories. But a team of scientists has discovered that cells from other parts
of the body also perform a memory function, opening new pathways for
understanding how memory works and creating the potential to enhance learning
and to treat memory-related afflictions.
“Learning and memory are generally associated with brains
and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can
learn and form memories, too,” explains New York University’s Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study,
which appears in the journal Nature Communications.
The research sought to better understand if non-brain cells
help with memory by borrowing from a long-established neurological property—the
massed-spaced effect—which shows that we tend to retain information better when
studied in spaced intervals rather than in a single, intensive session—better
known as cramming for a test.
In the Nature Communications research, the
scientists replicated learning over time by studying two types of non-brain
human cells in a laboratory (one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue)
and exposing them to different patterns of chemical signals—just like brain cells
are exposed to patterns of neurotransmitters when we learn new information. In
response, the non-brain cells turned on a “memory gene”—the same gene that
brain cells turn on when they detect a pattern in the information and
restructure their connections in order to form memories.
“Learning and memory are generally associated with brains
and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can
learn and form memories, too." NYU’s Nikolay Kukushkin
To monitor the memory and learning process, the scientists
engineered these non-brain cells to make a glowing protein, which indicated
when the memory gene was on and when it was off.
The results showed that these cells could determine when the
chemical pulses, which imitated bursts of neurotransmitter in the brain, were
repeated rather than simply prolonged—just as neurons in our brain can register
when we learn with breaks rather than cramming all the material in one sitting.
Specifically, when the pulses were delivered in spaced-out intervals, they
turned on the “memory gene” more strongly, and for a longer time, than when the
same treatment was delivered all at once.
“This reflects the massed-space effect in action,” says
Kukushkin, a clinical associate professor of life science at NYU Liberal
Studies and a research fellow at NYU’s Center for Neural Science. “It shows
that the ability to learn from spaced repetition isn't unique to brain cells,
but, in fact, might be a fundamental property of all cells.”
The researchers add that the findings not only offer new
ways to study memory, but also point to potential health-related gains.
“This discovery opens new doors for understanding how memory
works and could lead to better ways to enhance learning and treat memory
problems,” observes Kukushkin. “At the same time, it suggests that in the
future, we will need to treat our body more like the brain—for example,
consider what our pancreas remembers about the pattern of our past meals to
maintain healthy levels of blood glucose or consider what a cancer cell
remembers about the pattern of chemotherapy.”
The work was jointly supervised by Kukushkin and Thomas
Carew, a professor in NYU’s Center for Neural Science. The study’s authors also
included Tasnim Tabassum, an NYU researcher, and Robert Carney, an NYU
undergraduate researcher at the time of the study.
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