Memory: BDNF and microRNAs

Making memories: How one protein does it
The JHU Gazette
12 March 2012

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"Studying tiny bits of genetic material that control protein formation in the brain, Johns Hopkins scientists say that they have new clues to how memories are made and how drugs might someday be used to stop disruptions in the process that lead to mental illness and brain-wasting diseases.

"In a report published in the March 2 issue of Cell, the researchers say that certain microRNAs—genetic elements that control which proteins get made in cells—are the key to controlling the actions of so-called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, long linked to brain cell survival, normal learning and memory boosting."

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