Interference among memory traces

Memory traces compete under regimes of limited Arc protein synthesis: implications for memory interference.

Recently encoded information can be lost in the presence of new information, a process called 'retrograde interference'. Retrograde interference has been extensively described for more than a century; however, little is known about its underlying mechanisms. Different approaches agree on the need of the synthesis of plasticity related proteins (PRPs) to consolidate a long-term memory (LTM). Our...

Traces of Drosophila Memory

Studies using functional cellular imaging of living flies have identified six memory traces that form in the olfactory nervous system after conditioning with odors. These traces occur in distinct nodes of the olfactory nervous system, form and disappear across different windows of time, and are detected in the imaged neurons as increased calcium influx or synaptic release in response to the con...

Tracing Subliminal Memory Traces

Memory traces unbound.

The idea that new memories are initially 'labile' and sensitive to disruption before becoming permanently stored in the wiring of the brain has been dogma for >100 years. Recently, we have revisited the hypothesis that reactivation of a consolidated memory can return it to a labile, sensitive state - in which it can be modified, strengthened, changed or even erased! The data generated from some...

Scenes, Spaces, and Memory Traces

The hippocampus is one of the most closely scrutinized brain structures in neuroscience. While traditionally associated with memory and spatial cognition, in more recent years it has also been linked with other functions, including aspects of perception and imagining fictitious and future scenes. Efforts continue apace to understand how the hippocampus plays such an apparently wide-ranging role...