Consolidation, stabilization reconsolidation of memory engrams. Memory recall dynamics. Fascinating.
National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health (NCBI)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=14744210&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum
The neurobiology of consolidations, or, how stable is the engram?
Dudai Y.
Department of Neurobiology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. yadin.dudai@weizmann.ac.il
Consolidation is the progressive postacquisition stabilization of long-term memory. The term is commonly used to refer to two types of processes: synaptic consolidation, which is accomplished within the first minutes to hours after learning and occurs in all memory systems studied so far; and system consolidation, which takes much longer, and in which memories that are initially dependent upon the hippocampus undergo reorganization and may become hippocampal-independent. The textbook account of consolidation is that for any item in memory, consolidation starts and ends just once. Recently, a heated debate has been revitalized on whether this is indeed the case, or, alternatively, whether memories become labile and must undergo some form of renewed consolidation every time they are activated. This debate focuses attention on fundamental issues concerning the nature of the memory trace, its maturation, persistence, retrievability, and modifiability.
PMID: 14744210 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16563730&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum
Reconsolidation: the advantage of being refocused.
Dudai Y.
Department of Neurobiology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. yadin.dudai@weizmann.ac.il
Ample evidence suggests that upon their retrieval, items in long-term memory enter a transient special state, in which they might become prone to change. The process that generates this state is dubbed 'reconsolidation'. The dominant conceptual framework in this revitalized field of memory research focuses on whether reconsolidation resembles consolidation, which is the process that converts an unstable short-term memory trace into a more stable long-term trace. However, this emphasis on the comparison of reconsolidation to consolidation deserves reassessment. Instead, the phenomenon of reconsolidation, irrespective of its relevance to consolidation, provides a unique opportunity to tap into the molecular, cellular and circuit correlates of memory persistence and retrieval, of which we currently know only little.
Other links........
Rites of passage of the engram: reconsolidation and the lingering consolidation hypothesis.
[Neuron. 2004]
PMID: 15450162
Molecular bases of long-term memories: a question of persistence.
[Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2002]
PMID: 12015239
Linking new information to a reactivated memory requires consolidation and not reconsolidation mechanisms.
[PLoS Biol. 2005]
PMID: 16104829
The secret life of memories.
[Neuron. 2006]
PMID: 16675390
Amnesia or retrieval deficit? Implications of a molecular approach to the question of reconsolidation.
[Learn Mem. 2006]
PMID: 17015846
