Answering the mistery of memory

In 1953, a young man who would later become known as patient H.M. underwent an experimental surgical procedure involving bilateral resection of the hippocampi as a treatment for intractable epilepsy. While the operation successfully alleviated his seizures, it resulted in a profound and unanticipated cognitive deficit. Although previously established memories remained largely intact, he was unable to form new declarative memories.

Subsequent studies of H.M. demonstrated that the hippocampus is indispensable for the initial encoding of memory, yet is not the ultimate site of long-term storage. However, the mechanisms by which memories are encoded within the hippocampus, reorganized across distributed brain networks, and subsequently retrieved remain incompletely understood. Elucidating these processes constitutes a central objective in contemporary neuroscience.

Our laboratory addresses this problem through an integrative, multi-scale approach spanning molecular, cellular, circuit, and behavioral levels:

Protein trafficking in long-term potentiation Liquid–liquid phase separation in synaptic plasticity Molecular mechanisms underlying structural plasticity of dendritic spines Dynamic properties of cellular memory engrams

Original drawing of the hippocampus by Santiago Ramón y Cajal (Golgi staining).

Mouse hippocampal section from a transgenic line expressing G-CaMP7 and DsRed2.

Latest News

November 12, 2021: Work by Akihiro Goto published in Science. See “Erasing memory with light – understanding why sleep is necessary for memory.”
April 29, 2021: Work by Tomohisa Hosokawa and Pinwu Liu published in Nature Neuroscience. See “An oil–water relationship explains memory formation – a new protein segregation mechanism in the brain.”