X-Message-Number: 4285
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 1995 12:54:12 -0700
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Improving Memory

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There is an interesting article in the April 7 1995 issue of
CELL about long term memory. Jerry Yin used genetic engineering
to produce a strain of fruit flies that overproduced a protein
named CREB. He found that these artificial flies were much
better at producing long term memories than natural fruit flies.
It takes 10 repetitions for normal flies to learn something well
enough to remember it 7 days latter, the genetically improved
flies only needed one trial. In another experiment he found that
flies that overproduced a slightly different form of CREB did
worse at memory formation that the control group, further confirming 
that CREB is crucial for memory. Lin is quoted as saying:  

        "The really stunning thing here is that manipulating just one 
         molecule can perturb such complex behavior. There are a million 
         ways you can muck something up but if you can improve a process, 
         you're probably looking at something that's crucial."
        
The conventional wisdom has always been that intelligence must
involve hundreds or thousands of genes, and so to make
significant improvements in intelligence by genetic engineering
would be very difficult because you would have to change all of
the genes at the same time, however  the conventional  wisdom
may be wrong. At least in fruit flies changing just one gene can
produce a smarter animal, perhaps the same is true for humans,
and even if that's not true this discovery may help us understand 
how long term memories are encoded.



                           John K Clark                 
                           
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