Yesterday I met someone after 35 years.
The memories that were triggered were sharp and clear but we each remembered different episodes with differing degrees of clarity. Many memories that surged to the surface were matters that I had not consciously thought of during the 35 year interval.
Why then are some memories stored in the brain with – apparently – no deterioration and a mass or surrounding detail and others are only vague recollections or even non-existent?
Perhaps the answer lies in the protein kinase PKMzeta. In The Beautiful Brain Podcast, Todd Sacktor, Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at SUNY talks about his research regarding the mechanisms of long-term memory storage—and deletion— in the brain.
image: http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n14/mente/chaos.html
Sacktor’s research investigates the activity of a class of proteins which are very active around synapses— the protein kinases – and they come in several varieties in the brain. They catalyze chemical reactions at the synapse, allowing a neuron to become more or less responsive to the electrical firing of its neighbor by aiding reactions that reshuffle neurotransmitter receptors.
Sacktor has identified one kinase in particular—called PKMzeta—which seems to be directly responsible for the maintenance of memory in the brain. When PKMzeta is found at a synapse, the memory encoded there is OK—it’s being maintained. When PKMzeta stops working at a synapse, the memory floats into the abyss of the brain, disassembled into its consituent cellular parts and extinguished from our recollection. In this edition of the podcast, Sacktor discusses his research and its implications on the way we understand memory storage in the brain.
The k2p blog 