Turning Moments into Memories

Researchers have found that enyzmes play a significant role in turning fleeting moments into lasting memories.

By Carlin Flora, published on November 18, 2003 - last reviewed on June 02, 2005

Researchers at Wake Forest University have come closer to explaining how fleeting moments are sealed into life-long memories. Ashok Hegde, assistant professor at WFU Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, along with colleagues, is mapping out the pathway that leads experiences to become long-term memories in mice.

For humans to store memories in the brain's keepsake box, "we must either get information repeatedly or strongly," Hegde explains. "One of the hallmarks of memories that last is a close association with emotion." Norepinephrine, a brain chemical similar to adrenaline, is released in the brain during such emotional situations. "Norepinephrine lowers the gate so that information can go into permanent storage," Hegde says."The details might be different in mice and people, but we think the mechanism will be the same."

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When a female mouse mates with a male mouse, she memorizes her partner's scent. Even if she mates with him only once, she can recognize his scent up to 50 days later. The researchers discovered than an enzyme known as protein kinase C played a fundamental role in converting the experience into a long-term memory, by activating genes and stimulating protein synthesis necessary to build the connections between nerve cells that underlie memories.

Hegde presented the research at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans. He is now using sophisticated computer programs to identify the specific "memory genes" in mice.