Mice study finds clues to age-related memory impairment

New Delhi, August 12

A new mice study may have found an association between an enzyme and memory loss in elderly people, an advance that can someday pave the way for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

The brain’s capacity to incorporate new information gets weaker with old age. The elderly can not only remember new information but also find it hard to modify their memories when new details emerge.

Researchers from the Pennsylvania State University (also called Penn State) in the US identified the enzyme histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) as the major reason for this.

The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, showed that older mice with the blocked enzyme were better able to incorporate new information and perform similarly to their younger counterparts.

Janine Kwapis, assistant professor of biology at Penn State said that research has not focussed on whether the “mechanisms behind memory formation and memory updating are identical or if they are unique for memory updating. This is a step forward in figuring that out.”

Kwapis said to take on new information, the brain has to bring the existing memory out of storage and weaken it.

However, this process, called reconsolidation, becomes less effective with age, Kwapis noted.

HDAC3 has previously been shown to negatively affect memory formation and gene expression during memory consolidation but the researchers said its role in memory reconsolidation wasn’t previously studied.

The study noted that when HDAC3 was blocked during the memory reconsolidation phase, it prevented the typical age-related deficits in memory updating.

Further research into the findings can potentially lead to therapeutic targets for improving cognitive flexibility in old age.

Kwapis said if the findings boost “memory in normal ageing, they could potentially help with conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia”.