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Studying memory's ripples
A stained pyramidal cell (shown in blue) in area CA1--a part of the hippocampus that is thought to be an important relay station for memories--of the mouse hippocampus. Neurons expressing calbindin are shown in green and inhibitory neurons expressing parvalbumin are shown in red. During intracellular recording of the neuron’s membrane potential, the pyramidal cell was filled with dye so it could be located and imaged.
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Neuroscientists at Caltech have looked inside brain cells as they undergo intense bursts of neural activity known as "ripples" that are thought to underlie memory formation. During ripples, a small fraction of brain cells, or neurons, fire synchronously in area CA1, a part of the hippocampus that is thought to be an important relay station for memories.
How do ripples exert their influence on the rest of the brain? The membrane potential of each neuron oscillates very rapidly during ripples to synchronize the firing of cells to within a few thousandths of a second. "By coordinating their activities, the CA1 neurons are maximizing the impact of their output on downstream areas of the brain. The overall effect is more powerful than if each neuron fired independently," says Lubenov, a coauthor of the study and a research scientist at Caltech. "It is the difference between clapping independently or in unison with others at a concert. The effect in the latter case is stronger, even with the same number of people applauding."
To learn more about this research, see the Caltech news story Studying memory's 'ripples'. (Date image taken: 2015-2016; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: May 31, 2017)
Credit: Image courtesy of T. Siapas/Caltech
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