Scientists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have made a ‘paradigm shifting’ discovery on the mechanisms required for learning and memory that could lead to new therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and potentially Down syndrome.
The study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
For over 30 years, researchers believed that LTP or long-term potentiation, which is crucial for learning and memory, required enzymatic actions by an enzyme known as CaMKII.
But a team of researchers led by Ulli Bayer, PhD, professor of pharmacology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, found that LTP requires structural not enzymatic functions of CaMKII.
That’s significant, Bayer said, because it opens the door to the therapeutic use of a new class of inhibitors that target only the enzymatic activity of CaMKII, but not the structural functions required for memory and…
