Can you imagine a near future in which the elderly would have more or less clear memories? As is well known, with the passage of time, lived experiences tend to be forgotten and memory reduces its spectrum of recollections. However, a recent scientific finding identifies the region of the brain responsible for this forgetfulness and opens the possibility of reversing the trend.
A team of researchers at Columbia University, led by Nobel laureate Eric R. Kandel, has discovered that age-related memory loss is not related to Alzheimer’s disease, but that this decline is caused by the deficiency of a molecule located in the brain. This finding could lead to a treatment that would put an end to the difficulty of remembering as the years go by.
The research was carried out by analyzing human brain samples from eight deceased people, aged between 33 and 88 years, all free of any brain disease. The study identified 17 candidate genes that could be related to memory loss, although it was in the RbAp48 protein where the most revealing deficiencies occurred.
This protein, located in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus (a structure that plays a fundamental role in learning and memory), was reduced by half in brain samples from older patients.
Target met
The study was intended to look for direct evidence that age-associated memory loss is a different syndrome from Alzheimer’s disease, and thanks to this finding it has been possible to demonstrate that memory loss affects a different area from the one damaged by Alzheimer’s – the so-called dentate gyrus, different from the hippocampus.
Hopes for a treatment
To test whether this protein was a determinant of memory loss as we age, the protein was inhibited in young mice. The results showed that these animals lost their memory and, most surprisingly for the researchers, recovered it if the protein was increased in the brains of the older mice (it even functioned at the same level as that of young mice).
This is an encouraging discovery in the search for a treatment that can reverse memory loss over the years, as evidenced by tests on mice.