It’s true that there are some memories we would rather forget and some we would give anything to hold on to. Well, there could indeed be a way to regain lost memories and one day even help Alzheimer’s patients, new research suggests.
Retrieving lost memories may be possible, according researchers who looked at how long-term memory is affected in a type of marine slug in a study published in the journal eLife.
For the study, researchers strengthened new connections between neurons in a marine slug called Aplysia californica by using the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical that carries messages between neurons.
They found that this process was able to spark the physical changes needed to hold long-term memory. Researchers treated cells with a protein inhibitor to prevent memories from forming but found that even when the synapses were damaged that traces of memories still remained.
This could mean that initial memory synapses don’t necessarily need to be intact in order to retrieve lost memories, the researchers suggest. Knowing that these synapses are not as essential to long term memory could be helpful in future treatment and study of Alzheimer’s patients and their ability to regain or access lost memories.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive disease that destroys memory and other important mental functions. The brain cells themselves degenerate and die, causing a steady decline in memory and mental function. A brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease has many fewer cells and many fewer connections among surviving cells than a healthy brain does. As more and more brain cells die, Alzheimer’s leads to significant brain shrinkage.
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