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FRONTIERS
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Frontiers explores new ideas in science, meeting the researchers whoÌýsee the world through fresh eyes and challenge existing theories - as well asÌýhearing fromÌýtheir critics. ManyÌýsuch developments create new ethical and moral questions and Frontiers is not afraid to consider these.
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Memory Enhancement
Memory loss happens for all sorts of reasons, and its impact can be devastating. In this week's Frontiers, Peter Evans asks if new insights into brain chemistry might eventually enable us to reinstate memory processes when they fail.
Brain Chemistry
When Professor Eric Kandel from Columbia University in New York identified a protein that played a crucial role in the development of long-term memories, neuroscientists began to wonder if boosting that protein might help people with memory loss to recover their ability to remember.
Professor Kandel's work led to a Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2000, and in this week's Frontiers he talks to Peter Evans about the current state of his research, as well as the social and scientific implications of his discoveries about the chemistry of memory.
Memory Gene
A chemical approach is also being pursued by another American research team led by Professor Tim Tully at the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory.
Professor Tully and his team have identified a 'memory gene' and they are now trying to identify other genes that might play a part in the consolidation of long-term memories.
A Complex Process
Brain chemistry is clearly important to our understanding of the processes of memory.
But this is only the beginning of a research project that will have to explain not only how long-term memories are stored, but why the brain chooses to stores some memories rather than others, and how memories are retrieved.
Memory is critical to our ability to function as human beings, but is it in our interest to remember everything?
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