In recent years, researchers have been pursuing a short-term brain signal called gamma vibration through animal experiments, which can synchronize the transmission of millisecond-level bioelectrical activity through the waveform of brain tissue like pond ripples. In 1993, German scientist Wolf Singer proposed that gamma waves may be related to memory associations. For example, in a process called working memory, animals store and recall short-term memory associations as they explore the environment.
Scientists at the IKEN-MIT Neural Circuit Genetics Center have captured the elusive brain signal-based memory transmission. In this case, finding the exact first neural circuit at this time is a change. You need to be aware of your mistakes and take corrective measures. This discovery tests a 20-year hypothesis about how brain regions communicate.
The results of this study, published in the Journal of Cell, tested a 20-year hypothesis about how brain regions communicate. In recent years, researchers have been pursuing a short-term brain signal called gamma vibration, which can synchronize the transmission of millisecond-level bioelectrical activity through the waveform of brain tissue (such as the ripples in a pond). In 1993, German scientist Wolf Singer proposed that gamma waves may be related to memory associations. For example, in a process called working memory, animals store and recall short-term memory associations as they explore the environment.
Under the guidance of Nobel Prize winner Susumu Todoroki, the MIT team began to study and understand mouse working memory in 2006. Their animals feed through the T-shaped maze and turn left or right at the intersection. They found that working memory requires communication between two brain regions (the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex), but how the mouse knows the correct direction and the neural signals transmitted by the event memory is still unknown.
Atsushi Yamamoto, the lead author of the
study, noticed that when something happened, the mouse made a mistake, grabbed the wrong direction, stopped, and turned in the right direction. Out of curiosity, he recorded the neural activity in the circuit and observed a burst of gamma waves when the mouse paused. When the mouse selects the correct direction, he also sees the gamma wave, but when the mouse cannot select the correct direction or corrects the error, he does not find the gamma wave.
An important test that can stop gamma vibration and prevent the mouse from making correct decisions. To this end, the researchers created transgenic mice containing the light-sensitive Archerodopsin (ArchT) protein in the hippocampus. Using an optical fiber embedded in the brain, light flickers in the hippocampus circuit, thereby blocking the activity of gamma rays. The mouse will not be able to accurately choose the correct direction in the experiment. after
The modified research provides strong evidence for the role of gamma oscillations in cognition and improves the prospects for evaluating the working memory needs of retrieval and other behavioral interventions. This may open up a kind of behavioral research called metacognition.