Long-Held Belief About How Memory Works Challenged by Exciting New Research
By Jeremy Dean, PsyBlog, January 25, 2015
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It should be possible to restore the memories of people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, scientists at UCLA have announced.
This is because long-term memory is not stored at the synapses — the connections between brain cells which are destroyed in Alzheimer’s disease — as neuroscientists have long thought.
Professor David Glanzman, who led the study, said:
“Long-term memory is not stored at the synapse.
That’s a radical idea, but that’s where the evidence leads.
The nervous system appears to be able to regenerate lost synaptic connections.
If you can restore the synaptic connections, the memory will come back. It won’t be easy, but I believe it’s possible.”
