Our brain does a great job as a control center for our animal pockets if you stop and think about it – that can come back to your brain. Now researchers have discovered more about how the brain processes long-term memory in its storage areas.
New research focuses on the ‘zone of uncertainty’ or ‘zona incerta’ inside the brain: we don’t know much about it, but we do know that it seems to play a role in memory along with the neocortex, the largest part of the brain. cerebral cortex.
By studying tests on mice, the researchers analyzed how the connection between the zona incerta and the neocortex works, paying particular attention to synapses (connections between neurons) and inhibition (renewal of neuron activity).
“The results were striking,” says psychologist Anna Schroeder of the University of Freiburg in Germany. “Although half of the synapses produced the best responses during the learning process, the other half did the opposite.”
“In fact, what we saw was a complete breakdown of inhibitions within the system as a result of learning.”
When the brain forms memories, it combines the “bottom-up” signals that come from the environment with the “top-down” signal that it creates itself; The above signs can be based on our current goals or past events, for example.
The zona incerta uses a smaller type of downward signal called long inhibitory channels. Surface signals often light up or excite neural pathways, while these types inhibit, suppress and block these pathways as needed.
Differentiating the strength of synapses and the chain of neurons in the brain is necessary to create memories, helping the brain to give value to what we experience: everything that happens to us is somewhere on a memorable level.
These tests show that the zona incerta encodes past experiences in a unique binary manner that has never been seen before. A further experiment in which the zona incerta channels were blocked resulted in impaired learning in mice.
“This correlation means that the activation of the zona incerta should lead to the excitation of neocortical circuits,” says Schroeder.
“However, combining this with the redistributive inhibition that we observe and study suggests that this approach has a broader impact on neocortical processing.”
This is all basic brain science, but the bottom line is that we now know a lot about how a mysterious area of the brain affects memory and learning – and it does so in unusual and unexpected ways that are of great interest to scientists.
As more research investigates the function of the zona incerta, we are beginning to understand its impact: it is now linked to sleep and eating as well as pain and anxiety.
In addition, this compound is frequently targeted in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, although scientists still do not know why it helps with symptoms. Future research like this should help solve that mystery and several others.
“Finally, this study will encourage other researchers to continue to investigate the role of long-term inhibition in the management of neocortical activity, from the zona incerta and from other sources, which are still unknown,” says neuroscientist Johannes Letzkus from University of Freiburg.
Research has been published in Neurons.
