(February 9, 2012) Inside the teensy brains of fruit flies lies
the blueprint for how memories form — information that likely carries over to
our bulky noggins — and researchers have just identified two genes that are key
to forming long-term memories.
"The research could help us
tremendously in understanding our own brain and how it forms long-term
memories," said lead researcher Ann-Shyn Chiang, a neuroscientist at the
National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.
Fruit flies (Drosophila
melanogaster) have long been used as models to understand how memory works in
other species, humans included. Most scientists thought that fruit fly memory
consolidation — the conversion of short-term memories to long-term memories —
happened entirely in a brain region called the mushroom body, which is the
adult learning and memory center and is analogous to the human hippocampus.
But, using new genetic tools,
Chiang and his colleagues found that two specific neurons located outside of
the mushroom body are the primary workhorses in the formation of new long-term
memories. Moreover, they've identified two genes that are essential to the
formation of proteins that enable memories to be locked in.