New research has found that memories are developed in cells throughout the body, not just in the brain.
A team from New York University said the findings could be crucial to treating memory-related afflictions.
Team leader Nikolay Kukushkin said the research showed non-brain cells turned on a “memory gene” when they detected a pattern in information.
“Learning and memory are generally associated with brains and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can learn and form memories, too,” he said.
“It (also) shows that the ability to learn from spaced repetition isn’t unique to brain cells, but, in fact, might be a fundamental property of all cells.”
Professor Kukushkin said the research offered new ways to study memory and pointed to potential health-related gains.
“This discovery opens new doors for understanding how memory works and could lead to better ways to enhance learning and treat memory problems,” he said.
“At the same time, it suggests that in the future, we will need to treat our body more like the brain. For example, consider what our pancreas remembers about the pattern of our past meals to maintain healthy levels of blood glucose or consider what a cancer cell remembers about the pattern of chemotherapy.”
The full report is on the New York University website.
