But Dr. Finkbeiner and his team thought there was something else in play. In laboratory experiments, first in animal models and then in greater detail in the petri dish, the researchers tracked Arc's movements. And what they found was surprising. "When individual neurons are stimulated during learning, Arc begins to accumulate at the synapses—but what we discovered was that soon after, the majority of Arc gets shuttled into the nucleus," said Erica Korb, PhD, the paper's lead author who completed her graduate work at Gladstone and UCSF. "A closer look revealed three regions within the Arc protein itself that direct its movements: one exports Arc from the nucleus, a second transports it into the nucleus, and a third keeps it there. The presence of this complex and tightly regulated system is strong evidence that this process is biologically important." In fact, the team's experiments revealed that Arc acted as a master regulator of the entire homeostatic scaling process. During memory formation, certain genes must be switched on and off at very specific times in order to generate proteins that help neurons lay down new memories. From inside the nucleus, the authors found that it was Arc that directed this process required for homeostatic scaling to occur. This strengthened the synaptic connections without overstimulating them—thus translating learning into long-term memories. "This discovery is important not only because it solves a long-standing mystery on the role of Arc in long-term memory formation, but also gives new insight into the homeostatic scaling process itself—disruptions in which have already been implicated in a whole host of neurological diseases," said Dr. Finkbeiner. "For example, scientists recently discovered that Arc is depleted in the hippocampus, the brain's memory center, in Alzheimer's disease patients. It's possible that disruptions to the homeostatic scaling process may contribute to the learning and memory deficits seen in Alzheimer's." Dysfunctions in Arc production and transport may also be a vital player in autism. For example, the genetic disorder Fragile X syndrome—a common cause of both mental retardation and autism, directly affects the production of Arc in neurons. Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-scientists-brain-cells-long-term-memories.html#jCp
