Erase your memories at the flick of a (genetic) switch

Dementia, accidents or traumatic events can make us lose the memories formed before the injury or the onset of the disease. Now, European researchers have shown that some memories can also be erased when one particular gene is switched off.

The research team, from KU Leuven and the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, trained mice that had been genetically modified in one single gene: neuroplastin. This gene is very important for brain plasticity — in humans, changes in the regulation of the gene have recently been linked to decreased intellectual abilities and schizophrenia.

In a study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, the mice were trained to move from one side of a box to the other as soon as a lamp lights up, thus avoiding a foot stimulus. This learning process is called associative learning.

When the scientists switched off the neuroplastin gene after conditioning, the mice were no longer able to perform the task properly — in other words, they showed learning and memory deficits that were specifically related to associative learning. The control mice with the neuroplastin gene switched on, by contrast, could still do the task perfectly.

“We were amazed to find that deactivating one single gene is enough to erase associative memories formed before or during the learning trials,” said Professor Detlef Balschun from the KU Leuven Laboratory for Biological Psychology.

By measuring the electrical signals in the brain, the team discovered clear deficits in the cellular mechanism used to store memories — changes which were even visible at the level of individual brain cells. Professor Balschun explained, “Switching off the neuroplastin gene has an impact on the behaviour of the mice because it interferes with the communication between their brain cells.”

Further research will be required to show whether neuroplastin plays a role in other forms of learning.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Evgeny Terentev