Study: Solving Memory Riddle May Lead to New Ways to Treat Alzheimer's

A new theory on how the brain gathers memories could lead to new approaches for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

Some scientists believe the brain acquires memory over time, while others believe that an event only has to occur once before it gets entered into the memory banks.

Researchers at Rutgers University at Newark suggest the two methods of storing memory work together. The findings are reported in the June issue of the journal Trends in Cognitive Science

The researchers theorize that information goes through a kind of assembly line as the brain gathers it and directs it to a region known as the hippocampus. But before reaching the hippocampus, the information is processed in the entorhinal cortex area of the brain.

The entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus lay side-by-side, resembling two halves of a hotdog bun. The researchers believe the entorhinal cortex handles incremental learning, while the main task of the hippocampus may be storing episodic memory.

"The entorhinal cortex is among the very first brain regions that are damaged in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease, so understanding it is crucial to measuring the effectiveness of novel drugs to fight Alzheimer's disease," said researcher Mark Gluck, a co-director of the memory disorders project at the univeristy.

Other sources: Rutgers University