Molecular mechanisms of associative memory and their clinical implications

Behavioural Brain Research
D L Alkon

Abstract

In order to study how the human brain acquires, records, and recalls the relationships that comprise the images of human memory, our laboratory initiated a research strategy more than two decades ago. The strategy began with the hypothesis that the complex patterns of human memory are constructed from numerous simple relationships that are distributed over sensory space in our experience. This hypothesis further proposed that repeatable fundamental network architectures are distributed over brain structures to create internal images of our external and internal sensory experience. Based on this hypothesis, the first element of our research strategy was to (1) identify fundamental network architectures that learn and remember simple associative relationships such as those of Pavlovian conditioned responses; (2) demonstrate that the network biophysical and biochemical mechanisms of associative learning and memory in fundamental network architectures are conserved across species as diverse as those of snails, rabbits, and other mammals; (3) demonstrate that conserved memory mechanisms are targets of pathologic involvement in a human disease characterized by memory loss such as early Alzheimer's disease; (4) and derive mathematical...Continue Reading

References

Dec 15, 1992·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·D L AlkonC Collin
Jul 1, 1989·Scientific American·D L Alkon
Feb 26, 1988·Science·D L Alkon, H Rasmussen
Jul 1, 1983·Scientific American·D L Alkon

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Citations

Jul 1, 1996·Uspekhi fiziologicheskikh nauk·N A Emel'ianov, M O Samoĭlov
Mar 29, 2003·Neural Networks : the Official Journal of the International Neural Network Society·Philip T. Quinlan
Jul 1, 1995·Molecular Medicine Today·P M Rowe
Sep 18, 1997·Trends in Neurosciences·F BattainiS Govoni

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