How the Brain Makes Space for New Memories: By Erasing a Few Old Ones

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By Smriti Rao
Feb 24, 2010 4:55 AMNov 20, 2019 2:02 AM
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Forgetting an umbrella or the location of a parking spot may be annoying, but scientists have suggested that for healthy brains to function well, they need to forget. By forgetting, scientists say, the brain makes space for new memories. In an intriguing breakthrough, researchers from the United States and China have identified the protein responsible for forgetting in fruit flies. By tweaking a protein called Rac, researchers were able

to speed up and slow down the erasure of painful memories [New Scientist]. The

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