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London - The brain remains one of the organs of the human body's most mysterious, because not many people understand the mechanisms involved in it.
But recently three British researchers, each named Tim Bliss, Graham Collingridge and Richard Morris successfully unravel one of the mysteries that exist in the brain, which is how the brain stores a memory or memories.
How to? Basically, most scientists believed that memory is stored by itself, without any special or specific molecular mechanisms that come into play.
Interestingly, the three scientists have never worked in the same lab, but what they found successfully collaborated to elucidate the mechanism of the brain during memory store.
"We just had the same idea about the brain and the memory of this, but we do not really understand how it works," said one researcher, Morris was quoted as saying on the BBC,
The basis of this finding is the result of research on the brain's hippocampus were performed Bliss with a colleague in 1973. When the recording of brain cells in rabbits, they found that giving stimulation or stimulation at two nerve cells connected repeatedly makes the connections (synapses) both are getting stronger.
"When a nerve cell is connected by nerve cells attempt to break the B and A B, then the synapses between them even more powerful," said Bliss (75) who has been working at the National Institute of Medical Research, London.
Connections between cells that is the foundation of formation of memory or are referred to as' long-term potentiation "(LTP). This process lasts a lifetime and underlie each person's ability to learn and remember things.
After that, Collingridge (61), a researcher from the University of Bristol and also the youngest among the three researchers found a special technique to identify some of the key molecules involved in LTP. In this regard, he emphasized the role of NMDA receptors, an important protein that is in the process of communication between cells.
Furthermore, Morris (67) reveals the importance of understanding the formation of this memory in detecting or even dealing with Alzheimer's in the future.
"It could be the earliest stage of Alzheimer's disease is actually a process of disruption of the mechanisms of synaptic earlier. And with the LTP mechanism we can make sure if someone trouble to create a new memory, it probably is the risk of the disease exist," he explained.
Collingridge added, armed with these findings, did not rule out the possibility in the future of the medical world has been able to erase the memory of a bad or unpleasant to use drugs, and overcoming mental disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
All three are entitled to bring home a prize of one million euros from a Danish foundation called Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation, based in Copenhagen. Interestingly, this is the first time the prize was awarded to three researchers from the UK as well.
Which is considered the most prestigious prize in brain research is scheduled to be handed over symbolically by the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Denmark, Prince Frederik in July.
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