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When a long-term memory forms, some brain cells experience a rush of electrical activity so strong that it snaps their DNA. Then, an inflammatory response kicks in, repairing this damage and helping to cement the memory, a study in mice shows.
The findings, published on 27 March in Nature1, are “extremely exciting”, says Li-Huei Tsai, a neurobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge who was not involved in the work. They contribute to the picture that forming memories is a “risky business”, she says. Normally, breaks in both strands of the double helix DNA molecule are associated with diseases including cancer. But in this case, the DNA damage-and-repair cycle offers one explanation for how memories might form and last.
It also suggests a tantalizing possibility: this cycle might be faulty in people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, causing a build-up of errors in a neuron’s DNA, says study co-author Jelena Radulovic, a neuroscientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
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Life is so fucking wild. Like how the hell many weird mutations had to happen for this to work and not result in instant death?
An uncountable number. Billions and billions of simple multicellular organisms reproducing, until one (or some) of them develop this mechanism and use it to drastically increase their survival and chance at reproduction.
It makes me wonder at what stage of evolution it appeared. I’m thinking the simple wormlike animals of the early Cambrian era.
Probably none. Neurons are destroyed all the time.
I thought this was known a long time ago. From 2015:
http://neurosciencenews.com/genetics-aging-neurodegeneration-dna-2090/
I didn’t know. Or maybe I just broke my dna wrong.
Looks like the 2015 research was with isolated neurons, whereas the 2024 research is with live mice and gives actual evidence that memory is affected.
Interesting. Maybe this is just a deeper dive into that?
The team pinpointed the cause of the inflammation: a protein called TLR9, which triggers an immune response to DNA fragments floating around the insides of cells.
So what you’re saying is that Go’auld genetic memory could be a thing?
No, neuron DNA isn’t passed to offspring.
I didn’t realize I’d meet an expert on Go’auld genomics on the fediverse yet here you are
They said “could be” as in theres no physical law of the universe preventing it not “this exists now.”
Is that just a weird way of describing neural pathway formation?
We know a lot about connectivity” between neurons “and neural plasticity, but not nearly as much about what happens inside neurons”, she says.
I don’t think it’s necessarily describing that so much as what happens to the neurons during that process.
Granted, I only posted the article because I thought it was an interesting read and don’t necessarily understand a lot of the finer points of it.
