How does a negative experience at the table, even far in time, to create lasting memories in the brain? Knowing it is important for the treatment of trauma.
A very fresh sushi bite that made us feel bad can be enough to ruin forever our relationship with this type of food. How does a single food poisoning also not very recent to leave such indelible traces in the brain? A group of neuroscientists from the University of Princeton has identified the brain mechanism that allows you to remember the dishes that have given us problems, so as to avoid them in the future.
The research, published on Natureonly apparently concerns a “niche” topic: clarify how The brain forms connections between events distant over time In fact, it could inform the research, and the therapy, of diseases related to traumatic memories (not only inherent in food).
With delayed burst. Although food poisonings concern a little bit everyone at least once in a lifetime, as their memory is cemented in the brain is rather mysterious. This type of experience is in fact very different from other forms of learning physical pain, due to the temporal distance between when we eat something toxic and when we begin to warn its symptoms.
I don’t want to see it anymore! The authors of the study have simulated food intoxication in mice offering them some sips of a very sweet grape flavored artificial drink followed by an injection of a substance that caused a temporary malaise, with the typical symptoms of intoxication. Two days later, the mice exposed to that same drink understandably they avoided itpreferring the water.
The learning center. Christopher Zimmerman, the first author of the study, observed that in every phase of the experience of mice, the association between drink and malaise activated the central amygdalawhere neurons involved in learning emotions and fear live, but also in the analysis of environmental stimuli, such as flavors and smells. These cells were active when the mice drank and known the new flavor, they were when they felt bad, and even when they remembered the negative event thus avoiding drinking that juice again.
Fault of what I ate! The group of scientists also reconstructed how the signal of malaise travel from the brain. According to the authors of the study, the new flavors could induce certain brain cells to remain sensitive to the signals of any ailments for a few hours after the meal, thus allowing these same cells to be reactivated if you are actually hurt. In this way the neurons would be able to connect the cause of physical discomfort with its effect, despite the time of time has passed since that experience.
A good example. «Often when we learn in the real world, there is a long delay between a choice that we have made and the result. But this is generally not studied in the laboratory, so we do not really understand the neural mechanisms that support this type of learning on long temporal distances»Explains Zimmerman. The discovery could shed light on how memories are formed in people who have suffered trauma, such as those now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
