The April 2012 edition of Discover Magazine contained the article, “Where Memory Lives”, written by Dan Hurley. The article discussed the research designed to find if memories in the amygdala of mice where fear-based memories are stored could be manipulated. The research held promise, not only to eradicate the fear from trauma or a negative but also to strengthen the hippocampus in Alzheimer’s patients. One, very recent study, conducted by University of Toronto scientists, Sheena Josselyn and Paul Frankland, used CREB, a protein called CAMP Response Element-Binding. CAMP is cyclic adenosine monophosphate, a messenger chemical involved with storing memories in the amygdala. Their goal was to find the neurons involved in storing a specific memory and target them for destruction. They found that the neurons responsible for the memory were evenly dispersed throughout the amygdala so targeting them was a challenge. They found an ingenious way to select only those neurons involved in a memory by first conditioning mice to form a specific memory. They then looked for the protein produced in neurons within 5 minutes of memory formation and injected only those neurons with CREB and a toxin. Once the toxin destroyed those targeted neurons, the unconditioned response didn’t take place, a sort of “selective amnesia”. The hope is to expand on the research to help those with PTSD, among other problems, but remain cautious as they killed a single fearful event in one area of the brain in a mouse. Also promising is that they have injected CREB into the hippocampus in mice with equivalent of Alzheimer’s and found that the mice regained ability to learn.
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