Scientists create a tool to ‘edit’ brain functions and improve memory
The brain is often described as a dense forest of connections, and for years scientists have searched for ways to trim that forest with precision. They have learned how to turn neural activity up or down. Reworking the physical wiring itself has been much harder. Now a team in South Korea says it has built a tool that can do just that. Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science and the Korea Brain Research Institute developed a system called SynTrogo, short for Synthetic Trogocytosis, that lets astrocytes, the star-shaped support cells wrapped around synapses, selectively reduce synaptic connections in a chosen brain circuit. In mice, the method cut excitatory synapse numbers in a memory-related hippocampal pathway by about 27 percent. Yet instead of weakening the circuit, the remaining connections became stronger, more plastic, and better at supporting memory. “This is the first demonstration that brain circuits can be directly edited by engineering physical interactions between neurons and astrocytes, independent of neuronal activity,” said Dr. LEE Sangkyu of the IBS Center for Memory and Glioscience. “It …
