2023-10-09 11:00:06
A surprising discovery in the field of neuroscience reveals that neurons are not the only players in memory formation. Pericytes, cells located in the walls of blood capillaries in the brain, also play a crucial role.
Pericytes are essential for regulating blood flow in the brain and maintaining the blood-brain barrier. encephalic, is a…). The latter is a cellular boundary which filters the molecules between the brain and the blood (Blood is a liquid connective tissue made up of free cell populations, including…). But that’s not all (The whole understood as a set of what exists is often interpreted as the world or…). According to a study published in the journal Neuron, these cells work in tandem with neurons to form and store long-term memories. Cristina Alberini, lead author of the study and professor of neural sciences at New York University (NYU), highlights the importance of this cellular cooperation for the development of treatments against memory-related diseases (In a way general, memory is the storage of information. It is also recollection…), like illness (Illness is an alteration of the functions or health of a living organism, animal…) d ‘Alzheimer’s.
The study focused on a protein called insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2). This protein sees its production increase in the hippocampus, a key region of the brain for the formation of long-term memory, after learning (Learning is the acquisition of know-how, that is to say the process…). Researchers found that pericytes produce the majority of this IGF2 in the hippocampus.
Additional experiments showed that stopping IGF2 production by pericytes hindered the rodents’ ability to form long-term memories. Benjamin Bessières, co-author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at NYU, adds that this discovery could have implications in understanding neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers plan to further explore the interactions between IGF2 and other cell types in the brain. They also wish to understand whether this mechanism involves all pericytes in the hippocampus or only a selective group.
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