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Hope for dementia patients: Study suggests lost memories can be restored

"As long as the neurons are still alive, the memory will still be there," David Glanzman said.

By Brooks Hays
New research suggests memories may be stored inside the nucleus of brain neurons, not in the synapses. Photo by Michael N. Economo/University of Utah
New research suggests memories may be stored inside the nucleus of brain neurons, not in the synapses. Photo by Michael N. Economo/University of Utah

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- Researchers at UCLA say new science suggests lost memories are restorable, lending hope to the millions of Americans facing early onset dementia as a result of Alzheimer's.

Until now, the best neuroscience assumed memories were stored in the synapses, the connections between neurons. Scientists believe Alzheimer's is the result of plaque buildup in brain, which degrades and kills these synapses -- erasing the memory stored there.

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But a new study, published this week in the journal eLife, suggests memory is stored elsewhere, and that if neurons can be rebridged by new connections, then old (once lost) memories could potentially be retrieved.

"Long-term memory is not stored at the synapse," senior author David Glanzman, a UCLA professor of neurobiology, explained in a recent press release. "That's a radical idea, but that's where the evidence leads. The nervous system appears to be able to regenerate lost synaptic connections. If you can restore the synaptic connections, the memory will come back. It won't be easy, but I believe it's possible."

In a series of experiments, involving both specimens of the marine snail Aplysia and neurons isolated in petri dishes, researchers were able to deduce that synapse function (and the proteins involved within) -- while vital to memory formation -- is not necessary for memory storage. In a number of the tests, protein inhibitors designed to disrupt synapse function were shown not to damage long-term memory.

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"That suggests that the memory is not in the synapses but somewhere else," Glanzman said. "We think it's in the nucleus of the neurons. We haven't proved that, though."

Scientists have been looking at ways to regrow synapses for some time now, and a few new Alzheimer's drugs have shown early promise for doing so.

"As long as the neurons are still alive, the memory will still be there, which means you may be able to recover some of the lost memories in the early stages of Alzheimer's."

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