Stopped brain clock saves memory in hamsters
Broken timekeeper may explain some mental problems
By Meghan Rosen
Killing the brain’s clock could sharpen memories. The memory problems plaguing night shift workers, jet-lagged travelers and people with Alzheimer’s disease might be fixed by destroying the body’s timekeeper, a new study in hamsters suggests.
In hamsters with malfunctioning clocks, surgically removing these brain structures reversed the animals’ memory troubles, researchers report in the Nov. 14 Science.
“The result is really quite striking,” says behavioral neuroscientist Ralph Mistlberger of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. In these animals, “having a broken clock is worse than having no clock at all,” he says.