Researchers Create Short-Term Memories In-Vitro

[TECH NEWS]

Ben W. Strowbridge and Robert A. Hyde of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have discovered how to store diverse forms of artificial short-term memories in isolated brain tissue. “This is the first time anyone has found a way to store information over seconds about both temporal sequences and stimulus patterns directly in brain tissue,” says Dr. Strowbridge. “This paves the way for future research to identify the specific brain circuits that allow us to form short-term memories.” Their study, entitled “Mnemonic Representations of Transient Stimuli and Temporal Sequences in Rodent Hippocampus In Vitro,” is slated for publication in the October issue of Nature Neuroscience, and is currently available online. In their study, the researchers sought to better understand the mechanisms underlying short-term declarative memories such as remembering a phone number or email address someone has just shared. Using isolated pieces of rodent brain tissue, the researchers demonstrated that they could form a memory of which one of four input pathways was activated.

September 10, 2012, Newswise