Research shows that kidney cells and nerve tissue can learn and form memories in a similar way to neurons. It is known that our brain, and especially brain cells, store memories. However, a team of scientists discovered that cells in other parts of the body also play a role in memory, opening up new ways of understanding how memory works and creating the potential to improve learning and treat memory-related diseases.

“Learning and memory are usually associated only with the brain and brain cells, but our research shows that other cells in the body can also learn and form memory,” explains Mykola V. Kukushkin of New York University is the study’s lead author. It was published in the journal Nature Communications.

The research sought to better understand whether cells outside the brain contribute to memory by taking advantage of a long-established neurological feature (the mass effect); This suggests that we tend to remember information better when we study it in intervals rather than studying it in isolation. intensive session – more commonly known as test runs.

In the Nature Communications study, scientists replicated the learning over time by examining two types of human cells unrelated to the brain in the laboratory—one from nerve tissue, the other from kidney tissue—and exposing them to different patterns of chemical signals like brain cells. . When we learn new information, we are affected by neurotransmitter patterns. In response, extrabrain cells activated a “memory gene”; This is the same gene that brain cells activate when they detect a pattern in information and restructure their connections to form memories.

Monitoring memory gene activation

To control the memory and learning process, scientists engineered these cells, which are not related to the brain, to produce a bright protein that signals when the memory gene is turned on or off.

The results showed that these cells can sense that chemical impulses that mimic neurotransmitter bursts in the brain are repeated rather than just prolonged; just like the neurons in our brain can record what we learn in bursts rather than cramming all the material in. Specifically, when the pulses were delivered at intervals, they activated the “memory gene” more strongly and for longer periods of time than when the same treatment was given all at once.

“This reflects the mass-space effect in action,” says Kukushkin, a clinical assistant professor of life sciences at NYU Liberal Studies and a researcher at the NYU Center for Neuroscience. “This suggests that the ability to learn based on repetition intervals is not specific to brain cells but may in fact be a fundamental feature of all cells.”

The findings not only suggest new ways to study memory, but also point to potential health benefits, the researchers add.

“This discovery opens up new ways to understand how memory works and may lead to better ways to improve learning and treat memory problems,” Kukushkin notes. “It also suggests that in the future we will need to treat our bodies like our brains; think of our pancreas remembering our past eating habits to maintain healthy blood sugar levels, for example, or the fact that our body’s healthy cancer cell remembers its chemotherapy regimen.”