For the first time, a Cornell University-led study in rats teases apart the role of the hippocampus in two functions of memory — one that remembers associations between time, place and what one did, and another that allows one to predict or plan future actions based on past experiences.
The breakthrough reveals that these two memory tasks, both coded in the hippocampus, can be separated. The finding has important implications for one day treating memory and learning issues found in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
The study, published in Science, used advanced optogenetic techniques to disable one type of memory while maintaining the other.
“We uncovered that two different neural codes support these very important aspects of memory and cognition, and can be dissociated, as we did experimentally,” said Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz, assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior.
One…
