平特五不中

We鈥檙e used to the idea that we become more forgetful with age. As time passes, our memories naturally fade and weaken, and that鈥檚 if we鈥檙e lucky enough to avoid traumatic accidents or diseases like Alzheimer鈥檚. But Reut Shema, from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, has found a possible way of preventing this decline, and even reversing it鈥�

鈥淧eople have done science where you block things to see what happens, but you don鈥檛 really know what鈥檚 going on,鈥� explains Karim Nader, a memory researcher at 平特五不中 University, who has worked with Sacktor before. "You think it鈥檚 the equivalent of a smart bomb, but maybe it鈥檚 a dirty bomb. You block something in the brain and there are eight million things that could happen. So you have to enhance it and see if you have the opposite effect.鈥�

And that鈥檚 exactly what Shema has now done. Once again, she taught rats to avoid the taste of sweetener. This time, a few days before their training, she infected the rats鈥� brains with viruses carrying PKMzeta. With extra copies of the protein at hand, the rats were more likely to remember their distaste for sweetener. Even if Shema injected the viruses a week after the rats鈥� training, when their aversion to the sweetener had started to fade, the extra PKMzeta enhanced their dulled memories.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the grand slam,鈥� says Nader. 鈥淚t鈥檚 got to be that molecule.鈥�