In young zebrafish, brains change rather drastically after forming a fear-induced memory. Scientists were able to see what happens during memory formation in the fish after genetically engineering them to have fluorescent brains. The fish learned that bright light meant scorching heat, and the scientists compared what their brains looked before and after. They saw that some neurons (brain cells) looked like they had been torn from one area and grafted to another, suggesting that fear-induced memories fundamentally change brain structure. Read full article here
Oddities
The Curious Case of the Ancient Brain
In 2008, archaeologists examining the University of York discovered something strange: the decapitated head of an Iron Age man and his very shrivelled but very much intact brain. How a centuries-old brain was preserved is still unknown, but research suggests that it could have been because of brain diseases like dementia. The Yorkshire man’s brain’s proteins were bunched up together, much like how dementia causes brain proteins to bunch up into plaques. This bunching up, or aggregation, could continue even after death, turning regions of the brain into hard masses. Read full article here
Merv
September 30, 2022
