Episode 341 - Forming, Saving and preserving new memories

Your brain uses proteins synthesis and redundancy to help form and keep memories. Intricate biochemistry helps your neurons connect to each other to form new memories. Forming new memories is a sticky situation.  Keeping them stuck together over time in a long lasting memory relies on protein synthesis. Its important not just to have strong connections between neurons to form memories, you also need spares. By having redundancy and backups it means that you can still remember a key memory if one of those connections fails.

References

1. Lenzie Ford et al. CPEB3 inhibits translation of mRNA targets by localizing them to P bodies. PNAS, 2019 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1815275116
2. Walter G. Gonzalez, Hanwen Zhang, Anna Harutyunyan, Carlos Lois. Persistence of neuronal representations through time and damage in the hippocampus. Science, 2019: Vol. 365, Issue 6455, pp. 821-825 DOI: 10.1126/science.aav9199