Losing brain plasticity = losing memory

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers are finding brain plasticity -- the ability to change and grow -- may be key to memory.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, the University of Chicago and the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory say the extensions of neurons in the brain -- dendrites -- contain hundreds of thousands of spines that provide memory storage and transmission of signals across the synapse.

Study author Dr. Roberto Malinow of the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, says it is at the juncture where signals must cross over -- the synapse -- where the proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease, amyloid beta, may produce harmful effects, the researchers say.

"We found that amyloid beta affects structural and not just functional, plasticity," Malinow says in a statement. "Normally, plasticity can be induced, which makes synapses stronger and bigger, but amyloid beta prevents this."

The findings are published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.