Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), 1919-1 Tancha, Onna-son, Kunigami-gun, Okinawa, 904-0495, Japan. Electronic address: https://twitter.com/meowmiyu.
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), 1919-1 Tancha, Onna-son, Kunigami-gun, Okinawa, 904-0495, Japan. Electronic address: https://twitter.com/linyuru25199808.
Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2022 Aug;75:102568. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2022.102568. Epub 2022 Jun 2.
Long-lasting synaptic changes within the neuronal network mediate memory. Neurons bearing such physical traces of memory (memory engram cells) are often equated with neurons expressing immediate early genes (IEGs) during a specific experience. However, past studies observed the expression of different IEGs in non-overlapping neurons or synaptic plasticity in neurons that do not express a particular IEG. Importantly, recent studies revealed that distinct subsets of neurons expressing different IEGs or even IEG negative-(yet active) neurons support different aspects of memory or computation, suggesting a more complex nature of memory engram cells than previously thought. In this short review, we introduce studies revealing such heterogeneous composition of the memory engram and discuss how the memory system benefits from it.
神经元网络内的长期突触变化介导记忆。具有这种记忆物理痕迹的神经元（记忆元细胞）通常与特定经历中表达即时早期基因（IEGs）的神经元等同起来。然而，过去的研究观察到不同的 IEG 在非重叠神经元中表达，或者在不表达特定 IEG 的神经元中存在突触可塑性。重要的是，最近的研究表明，表达不同 IEG 的不同神经元亚群，甚至表达 IEG 阴性（但活跃）的神经元，支持记忆或计算的不同方面，这表明记忆元细胞的性质比以前认为的更为复杂。在这篇简短的综述中，我们介绍了揭示记忆元这种异质组成的研究，并讨论了记忆系统如何从中受益。
