http://www.physorg.c...s176134811.html
The Hopkins team, reporting Oct. 29 in Neuron, reveals how palmitate, a fatty acid, marks certain brain proteins - NMDA receptors - that need to be activated for long-term memory and learning to take place. The fatty substance directs the receptors to specific locations in the outer membrane of brain cells, which continually strengthen and weaken their connections with each other, sculpting and resculpting new memory circuits.
Moreover, the researchers report, this fatty modification is a reversible process, with some sort of on-off switch, offering possibilities for manipulating it to enhance or even, perhaps, erase memory.
"Before now, no one knew that NMDA receptors change in response to the addition of palmitate," says Richard Huganir, Ph.D., professor and director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins.
Edited by Declmem, 30 October 2009 - 10:15 PM.
