(June 17, 2011) USC Viterbi School of Engineering scientists
have developed a way to turn memories on and off—literally with the flip of a
switch.
Using an electronic system that
duplicates the neural signals associated with memory, they managed to replicate
the brain function in rats associated with long-term learned behavior, even
when the rats had been drugged to forget.
"Flip the switch on, and the
rats remember. Flip it off, and the rats forget," said Theodore Berger of
the USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Berger is the lead author of an
article that will be published in the Journal of Neural Engineering. His team
worked with scientists from Wake Forest University in the study, building on
recent advances in our understanding of the brain area known as the hippocampus
and its role in learning.
In the experiment, the
researchers had rats learn a task, pressing one lever rather than another to
receive a reward. Using embedded electrical probes, the experimental research
team, led by Sam A. Deadwyler of the Wake Forest Department of Physiology and
Pharmacology, recorded changes in the rat's brain activity between the two
major internal divisions of the hippocampus, known as subregions CA3 and CA1.
During the learning process, the hippocampus converts short-term memory into
long-term memory, the researchers prior work has shown.