Unlocking the brain’s secret to powerful and addictive memories

summary: Recent research reveals a new brain mechanism that creates powerful memories and influences actions such as drug addiction. Focusing on cocaine experiences, the study found that the cooperation of neurons across multiple brain regions supports these lasting memories.

This widespread neural cooperation may explain the persistence of powerful, unwanted memories, with implications for understanding addiction. This achievement provides important insights into the development of treatments for addiction and memory-related disorders.

Key facts:

1. The study demonstrates how the activity of neurons distributed across the brain contributes to the formation of strong and lasting memories, especially related to drug experiences.
2. By modulating this increased neural activity, the researchers were able to restore more appropriate behavioral responses, suggesting potential therapeutic approaches.
3. The research highlights the delicate balance of memory power, and underscores its role in conditions ranging from dementia to addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.

source: Oxford university

Researchers from the Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit at the University of Oxford and the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience have identified a new mechanism by which the brain produces powerful, lasting memories that lead to unwise actions.

By focusing on the cocaine experience, the researchers demonstrate how the collective activity of many neurons distributed across the brain underlies the persistence of such memories, providing new insights into why drug-seeking behaviors may lead to addiction.

It is already known that many recreational drugs produce particularly strong memories, which link the experience of drug use to surrounding information such as what the user was doing at the time or where they were.

However, it is not clear how such strong memories are formed in the brain. Using mice, the researchers were able to identify a particular pattern of neuronal activity responsible for the repeated occurrence of these abnormally strong memories.

The researchers suggest that a possible explanation for why some unwanted memories are abnormally strong may be because those memories promote widespread cooperation between multiple brain regions. The researchers chose to focus on the cocaine experience to model the salient experience that changes behavior; And one with clear implications.

By monitoring groups of neurons, they observed that simultaneously increasing activity in diverse brain regions predicted the expression of strong, lasting memories. Reducing this increased activity allowed the return of more appropriate behavior.

The first author of the research paper, Dr Charlie Clark Williams, said: “One of the brain’s fundamental processes is to internally represent information about life experience in our environment. This principle usually ensures that we interact with the world in the most appropriate way.

“However, in the case of drug abuse such as cocaine, this natural mechanism is hijacked and can lead to inappropriate actions and, ultimately, addiction. Here we have discovered how groups of neurons distributed across the brain cooperate to form powerful memories.

Lead researcher Professor David Dupret added: “Recreational drug use is a widespread problem in our society, affecting the lives of many people and putting pressure on our healthcare system.” Memories must be balanced. Weak memories are often observed in old age or dementia. But on the other end of the spectrum are abnormally strong memories, which are characterized by unfiltered processing of information.

“Powerful memories that can lead to inappropriate acts appear in a wide range of brain conditions, such as drug addiction or post-traumatic stress disorder. This research provides a vital new understanding of how these memories are created in the brain, and is an important step in identifying new targets for treatments.” .

About memory and addiction research news

author: Charlie Clark Williams
source: Oxford university
communication: Charlie Clark Williams – University of Oxford
picture: Image credited to Neuroscience News

Original search: Open access.
“Coordination of Distributed Brain Network Activities in Extinction-Resistant Memory” by Charlie Clark-Williams et al. cell

a summary

Coordination of distributed network activities in the brain in extinction-resistant memory

Highlights

• The pattern of beta band activity distributed over the brain (∼20 Hz) indicates a strong expression of memory
• 4 Hz VTA glutamatergic neurons activate this transient coordination across the network
• Silencing 4-Hz phase VTA glutamate neurons prevents memory renewal after extinction

summary

Some memories resist extinction to continue activating maladaptive actions. The strength of these memories can depend on their widely distributed execution across groups of neurons in multiple regions of the brain. However, how disparate neural activities are collectively organized to support persistent memory-guided behavior remains unknown.

To investigate this, we simultaneously monitored the prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, amygdala, hippocampus, and ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the mouse brain from initial recall to post-extinction renewal of a memory involving cocaine experience. We discovered a higher-order pattern of short-lived beta frequency activities (15–25 Hz) that are transiently coordinated across these networks during memory retrieval.

Contrasting pathway output from VTA glutamatergic neurons, which is paced at a slower oscillatory pace (4 Hz), drives this multi-network beta band co-activation; Closed-loop phase-informed suppression prevents renewal of cocaine-biased behavior.

Linking distributed neural activities in the brain in this temporally organized manner may constitute an organizing principle for robust memory expression.