All Your Memories Are Stored by One Weird, Ancient Molecule

[bigheadfred]

We actually borrowed our ability to form memories from viruses.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/all-your-memories-are-stored-by-one-weird-ancient-molecule

 How does memory work? The further we seem to dive in, the more questions we stumble upon about how the function of memory first evolved. Scientists made a key breakthrough with the identification of the Arc protein in 1995, observing how its role in the plastic changes in neurons was critical to memory consolidation.

This protein is already a big deal, but the Arc picture just got a lot more interesting. In a 2018 study published in the journal Cell, a team of researchers at the University of Utah, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, argue that Arc took its place in the brain as a result of a random chance encounter millions of years ago. Similar to how scientists say the mitochondria in our cells originated as bacteria that our ancient ancestors’ cells absorbed, the Arc protein seems to have started as a virus.

[bigheadfred]

Article| Volume 172, ISSUE 1-2, P275-288.e18, January 11, 2018

The Neuronal Gene Arc Encodes a Repurposed Retrotransposon Gag Protein that Mediates Intercellular RNA Transfer

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.12.024

Highlights

    •
    The neuronal gene Arc encodes a protein that forms virus-like capsids
    •
    Arc protein exhibits similar biochemical properties as retroviral Gag proteins
    •
    Endogenous Arc protein is released from neurons in extracellular vesicles (EVs)
    •
    Arc EVs and capsids can mediate intercellular transfer of Arc mRNA in neurons

[bigheadfred]

Inhibition of Activity-Dependent Arc Protein Expression in the Rat Hippocampus Impairs the Maintenance of Long-Term Potentiation and the Consolidation of Long-Term Memory

2000

Abstract

It is widely believed that the brain processes information and stores memories by modifying and stabilizing synaptic connections between neurons. In experimental models of synaptic plasticity, such as long-term potentiation (LTP), the stabilization of changes in synaptic strength requires rapid de novo RNA and protein synthesis. Candidate genes, which could underlie activity-dependent plasticity, have been identified on the basis of their rapid induction in brain neurons. Immediate-early genes (IEGs) are induced in hippocampal neurons by high-frequency electrical stimulation that induces LTP and by behavioral training that results in long-term memory (LTM) formation. Here, we investigated the role of the IEGArc (also termed Arg3.1) in hippocampal plasticity. Arc protein is known to be enriched in dendrites of hippocampal neurons where it associates with cytoskeletal proteins (Lyford et al., 1995).

[bigheadfred]

Viruses can be our friends.

Remember that.

 

[truth_seeker]

Same story for memories in brains of dogs, whales, birds?

[bigheadfred]

Same story for memories in brains of dogs, whales, birds?

Yes. @truth_seeker

Other mammals have their own versions of Arc, as do birds, reptiles, and amphibians.

Shepherd studies a gene called Arc which is active in neurons, and plays a vital role in the brain. A mouse that’s born without Arc can’t learn or form new long-term memories. If it finds some cheese in a maze, it will have completely forgotten the right route the next day.
.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/brain-cells-can-share-information-using-a-gene-that-came-from-viruses/550403/

[roamer_1]

Just the ONE?

Well, that explains a lot. 

[dfwgator]

"This is too much!"