Toronto show that mice who ran after experiencing an event were most likely to forget it than their counterpart whom did not exercise afterwards. The results suggest that the production of neurogenesis prompted by the exercise wiped out the mice’s memories. This might also explain why human infants, whose brains are abundant in neurogenesis,
do not have long-term memories. Running is known to boost neurogenesis in mice. Sheena Josselyn and Paul Frankland taught mice to fear a particular environment and then put them on running wheel or do nothing. When the mice were returned to the box after a day or a week, Both groups of animals tended to recognize the now-familiar environment and freeze, a fear response. But if the mice were returned to the box after two weeks or more, only the mice would did not run froze. The exercisers seemed to have forgotten their fears.
NOS Themes:
Science is collaborative: Sheena Josselyn and Paul Frankland worked with a team from the University of Toronto
Importance of repeatability: the mice were testes for two weeks to see if the running had an affect on their memory
Link:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/39915/title/Exercise-Can-Erase-Memories/
This is really interesting! I did an article also about memories but it did not have to do with exercise. That is really cool how there was a direct correlation between exercise and memory loss, I think that having found the source of memory loss as neurogenesis can really expand the field for research and memory loss.
ReplyDeleteI located an article (published today actually!) that describes a new discovery published by researchers from the University of California and the San Diego School of Medicine that they have discovered a way to potentially recover memories in humans! They discovered a nerve in the brain, that if stimulated, could retrieve "lost" memories. So far, this was only tested on rats, but hopefully in the future a similar procedure will be able to work on humans. This could change so much in the medical world. Imagine if Alzheimers patients could just get back everything they forgot? Wow.
ReplyDeleteArticle: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10868816/Scientists-to-bring-back-the-lost-memories-of-Alzheimers-patients.html
Interesting! Scientist have found that exercising helps the mice to forget, but research also proves that exercising helps aging people with their memory. Scientists have recommend Aerobics as an effective exercise to help retain memories. What if exercising doesn't make you forget, but instead improves your memory and takes away the fear of whatever stimulated the fear response?
ReplyDeleteArticle: www.brainhealth.utdallas.edu/blog_page/study-finds-aerobic-exercise-improves-memory-brain-function-and-physical-fi
That is a very interesting article! This makes me wonder if exercise could be used as a treatment or therapy for people who have gone through trauma. Maybe there is a way to use exercise to help people forget bad memories. I think further research on this topic would be very helpful and very fascinating!
ReplyDeleteVery cool. I was thinking at first that maybe it was just that the mice had short memory and giving them something to do after the stimulus made them think about the most recent thing they were doing and forgot the events earlier, but I guess it's more complicated than that.
ReplyDeleteThis is rather intriguing. There is a broad range of directions this could go, but I am curious about one particular thing. What would happen if it was a positive memory as opposed to a negative one? Would the mice forget as well, or would the memory be more solidified? However, would there be a way to measure a pleasure response, akin to the freezing in fear? There are many possibilities.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting article. I have never heard about exercising erasing a mind. Could it be that only the mind of the mice were erased because they were so small? Could this affect humans as well or is our mind to developed and has to little neurogenesis? Could the discovery in Ben Stone's article help restore the memory of the mice?
ReplyDelete