2012年11月25日 讯 /生物谷BIOON/ --一项发表在11月11日的Nature Neuroscience杂志上的研究证实，成年海马中新生成的新生神经元对记忆提取至关重要。新生神经元在大脑中的功能作用是有争议的，这项新研究结果支持了大脑产生的新神经元可能是正常学习和记忆过程的关键这一理论。
以前的研究已经证明，新生神经元与成人现有的大脑中的神经元会组成连接。为了帮助确定新生神经元的作用，研究人员通过光基因技术(optogenetic technique)，控制海马中的新生神经元，测试它们的功能。
研究结果强有力的证实了新的神经细胞是恐惧记忆和空间定位记忆体很重要。在研究中，科学家使用了光电逆转录病毒，对成年小鼠的大脑新生神经元功能和回路进行了深入的探讨。研究结果还将有助于诊断和治疗成人大脑老化，老年痴呆症和阿尔茨海默氏病等。（生物谷：Bioon.com）
doi:10.1038/nn.3260
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Optical controlling reveals time-dependent roles for adult-born dentate granule cells.
Yan Gu, Maithe Arruda-Carvalho, Jia Wang, Stephen R Janoschka, Sheena A Josselyn, Paul W Frankland, Shaoyu Ge.
Accumulating evidence suggests that global depletion of adult hippocampal neurogenesis influences its function and that the timing of the depletion affects the deficits. However, the behavioral roles of adult-born neurons during their establishment of projections to CA3 pyramidal neurons remain largely unknown. We used a combination of retroviral and optogenetic approaches to birth date and reversibly control a group of adult-born neurons in adult mice. Adult-born neurons formed functional synapses on CA3 pyramidal neurons as early as 2 weeks after birth, and this projection to the CA3 area became stable by 4 weeks in age. Newborn neurons at this age were more plastic than neurons at other stages. Notably, we found that reversibly silencing this cohort of ~4-week-old cells after training, but not cells of other ages, substantially disrupted retrieval of hippocampal memory. Our results identify a restricted time window for adult-born neurons essential in hippocampal memory retrieval.
