Islands In The Brain: New Circuit Shapes Memory Formation

Saturday, February 1, 2014 - 11:20 in Biology & Nature

Researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics and MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have discovered a new brain circuit that shapes memory formation by endowing neurons with the ability to connect two events separated in time into a single experience. In a study appearing in the journal Science a research team lead by Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, MIT Professor and Director of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute report the discovery of Island cells and a new brain circuit responsible for limiting the brain's ability to link two events that happen seconds or minutes apart into one experience, a property of memory called temporal association. read more

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