Day: October 11, 2014

a radical new technology for controlling brain activity with light

Researchers erase memories in mice using flashes of light in bid to uncover how our memory works – and can be controlled

It sounds exactly like the plot of the hit film Men in Black – looking into the light to erase memories.

However, researchers in California have moved a step closer to making it a reality.

They used light to erase specific memories in mice, and proved a basic theory of how different parts of the brain work together to retrieve episodic memories.

The technique, known as optogenetics, pioneered by Karl Diesseroth at Stanford University, is a new way to manipulate and study nerve cells using light.

The techniques are rapidly becoming the standard method for investigating brain function.

Kazumasa Tanaka, Brian Wiltgen and colleagues at UC Davis applied the technique to test a long-standing idea about memory retrieval.

For about 40 years, Wiltgen said, neuroscientists have theorized that retrieving episodic memories – memories about specific places and events – involves coordinated activity between the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, a small structure deep in the brain.

‘The theory is that learning involves processing in the cortex, and the hippocampus reproduces this pattern of activity during retrieval, allowing you to re-experience the event,’ Wiltgen said.

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