ROCKVILLE, Md., Nov. 25 (UPI) -- More than 100 memory genes newly identified by Maryland scientists promise to help reveal brain-boosting therapies that improve learning, memory and attention, they reported Monday.Using the new findings, investigators injected a biochemical into rat brains that improved learning significantly, they said."This has the potential to uncover new drug targets and new drugs to enhance memory in people losing theirs, such as the elderly and people with Alzheimer's, or enhancing attention in younger people, such as those with attention deficit disorders," said researcher Dan Alkon, a neuroscientist at Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute."It even has the potential to enhance memory in so-called normal people."The institute and partner company Neurologic hope to start early clinical trials with memory drugs soon, Alkon told United Press International."Some of the compounds we have identified and patented are already declared safe for human use. Putting the drugs in clinics in the next two to three years is very realistic," he explained. "A few years ago, I wouldn't have thought we'd make such rapid progress. It's very encouraging."Memories are linked to proteins in the brain. Although short-term memory involves tweaking existing molecules to alter brain cell electrical patterns, long-term memory -- the kind linked to learning -- apparently relies on forming new molecules. Such operations in turn depend on gene activation.As reported in the Nov. 25 online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the investigators looked at brain gene activity in rats as the rodents learned how to swim through tiny mazes. After four tries on the same day, the rats as a group learned to find platforms from which they could escape the water, cutting the time it took to reach these islands from 48 seconds to 26 seconds.Alkon and his colleagues analyzed the activity of more than 1,200 brain genes simultaneously in tissue samples taken from the hippocampus, a brain region critical to memory. Gene activity in the learning rats was then compared with others that simply sat in their cages or swam around water mazes that did not have platforms to find.The researchers found learning affected some 140 genes."We could actually see waves of genes going up and down as a function of time as the animal is remembering and storing the memory," Alkon said. "This is the first time anyone's ever done that, because the technology was never there before."One biochemical, called fibroblast growth factor-18, was increased at all times during learning. When FGF-18 was injected into rat brains during the task, the researchers found the time required for the rats to learn the maze was halved.Neuroscientist Paul Gold of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an expert in developments of memory improvement treatments, said the discovery could lead to new drug treatments."It could prove interesting to look at how networks of expression of memory-related genes differ in instances of impaired memory as well as normal memory," he said. "Since we have many treatments that effectively improve cognitive function in laboratory settings, it would also be interesting to see how they interact with gene expression relevant to memory formation."
