Short-term memory protein discovered

COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. neuroscientists say their experiments with fruit flies have led to the discovery of a protein that regulates the erasure of short-term memories.

The Cold Spring Harbor (N.Y.) Laboratory researchers say they've discovered that three kinds of forgetting -- all involving the erasure of short-term memory -- are regulated within neurons by the activity of a protein called Rac.

The team, led by Professor Yi Zhong, examined the molecular basis of three different types of memory erasure. One kind of erasure is associated with gradual short-term memory loss; another entails an acute, rapid removal of short-term memory, and the third involves a kind of erasure associated with new information that interferes with an existing short-term memory.

In all three the team found the process of forgetting is mediated by a mechanism dependent upon the activity level of Rac, a type of protein known to act, among other things, as regulators of the cytoskeleton, the superstructure of cells.

"The molecular basis of short-term memory really has been overlooked by the neuroscience community," Zhong said. "It has been widely assumed that such memory is degraded through passive cellular processes. Our experiments challenge the notion by providing evidence of a dedicated mechanism for removing several kinds of short-term memories."

The research appears ahead of print in the online early edition of the journal Cell.