For many of us, my childhood memories are a bit blurry if they do not disappear completely. But no one remembers much before the age of four because almost all humans experience it. “Infant memory loss“When we go through adolescence, the memory that can be formed before that age seems to disappear, and it is not only us. The phenomenon seems to occur in several fellow mammals.
The simplest explanation for this is that the system that forms long -term memory is simply immature and does not work effectively until the children hit the age of four. But recent animal experiments suggest that the mouse’s situation is more complicated. Memories cannot be approached normally, but can be reactivated. Now, a study of human infants in the MRI tube suggests that memory activity can begin until 1, and the results of the mouse can be applied to us.
Less than total recall
Mice are one of the species we know. And thanks to more than a century of research on the mouse, we have sophisticated genetic tools that can explore what is actually involved in the inadequate of the animal’s earlyest memories.
no way Last year’s paper It explains a series of experiments that begin by learning how to learn how to see how a very young mice are being shocked. Without anything else with the mouse, the connection will be forgotten in life later due to loss of infant memory.
But in this case, the researchers were able to do something. Nerve activity generally causes a series of genes. In these mice, researchers encrypt proteins that can transform DNA by manipulating it. When this protein is made, permanent changes in the second genes inserted into the animal’s DNA. When this process is activated, the genes lead to the production of light activation ion channels.
