X-Message-Number: 412
From att!U.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU!Timothy_Freeman Wed Aug 28 17:19:23 0400 1991
To: 
Reply-to: Tim Freeman <>
Subject: Cryonics: Memory in a test tube
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 17:19:23 -0400
From: 

>From the front page of the Wed Aug 28 1991 USA TODAY:

Memory is re-created in test tube
By Tim Friend 
(quoted without permission, typos probably introduced by me)

NEW YORK -- Scientists have re-created in a test tube the chemical
process of learning and remembering.
   The research, reported here at the Fourth Chemical Congress of
North America, is preliminary.  But it has important implications for:
   Stroke victims, whose memories and learning abilities often are damaged.
   Memory in a test tube could speed development of drugs that help
rewire the brain for relearning lost abilities.
   Alzheimer's patients, whose brain cells and memories degenerate.
   The research will help scientists learn how to change the function
of cells and give patients more memory capacity..
   In his study, Daniel Koshland of the University of
California-Berkeley used naturally occurring chemicals to stimulate
two types of rat brain cells.
   When stimulated, some cells showed a short-term memory response,
and others produced a long-term response.
   When the short-term memory cells were exposed to a brain chemical
called serotonin, they changed into long-term memory cells -- showing
that different brain chemicals can make cells behave in different ways.
   "We're not making new brain cells, but we may be able to change the
chemistry within the cell," Koshland says.

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