11/12/2008

Recent research at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, of the Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas (FORTH) Crete, the results of which are published in the EMBO Journal, one of the most prestigious international scientific magazines reveals for the first time a scientific mechanism with which the nervous system learns and stores information.

Although memory and learning is one of the most fundamental operations of the brain, it is also one of the least understood. How is the nervous system able to store information and then recall it? Using the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans as a guinea pig, the institute?s researchers Giannis Vogglis and Nectarios Tavernarakis discovered a previously unknown procedure, with which the nerve cells regulate and modify the information corresponding to the stimuli from their environment. This ability of the nerve cells to transform their intermediary signalling corresponding to a previous experience is the basis of their memory and learning.

The nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans constitutes an excellent experimental system for neuro-biological studies as it has a simple nervous system composed of approximately 300 cells. By comparison, the nervous system of the human brain is composed of hundreds of billions of cells. In addition, how the neurons are connected with each other to create the total neural circuit in the nematode worm is understood.

The institute?s researchers studied a specific protein which operates to create a channel for ions and is required for associative learning in the nematode. This channel is detected in specific neurons which communicate on the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine and regulates their operation. In humans, these neurons play a significant role in the phenomenon of drug addiction. Also, these are the neurons which degenerate in Parkinson?s patients.

It is significant that genes that encode for such protein ion channels also exist in humans. Given the fact that the basic mechanisms which control the operation of the neurons in higher organisms, including humans, are similar to that of the nematode, it is possible that the similar protein ion channels participate in learning and memory procedures in these organisms.

The understanding of these mechanisms will allow the most effective combating of diseases related to loss of memory such as Alzheimer?s disease, senile dementia, and the effects on memory due to strokes, alcoholism, drugs and other abuse.

Source: FORTH