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Ask a nonscientist what memories are made of and you’ll likely conjure images of childhood birthday parties or wedding days. Charles Hoeffer thinks about proteins.
For five years, the assistant professor of integrative physiology at CU Boulder has been working to better understand a protein called AKT, which is ubiquitous in brain tissue and instrumental in enabling the brain to adapt to new experiences and lay down new memories.
Until now, scientists have known very little about what it does in the brain.
But in a new paper funded by the National Institutes of Health, Hoeffer and his co-authors spell it out for the first time, showing that AKT comes in three distinct varieties residing in different kinds of brain cells and affecting brain health in very distinct ways.
The discovery could lead to new, more targeted treatments for everything from glioblastoma–the brain cancer Sen. John McCain has–to Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.
Via Miloš Bajčetić
