据合众社日前报道，位于美国圣路易斯的华盛顿大学医学院的研究人员说，神经学家们认为，形成新的神经元突触是大脑进行记忆和学习的一种重要途径，但由于头颅空间有限等原因，大脑不能无限制地增加神经元突触。
研究人员利用果蝇进行研究，果蝇睡眠在许多方面类似于人类的睡眠。研究人员保罗·肖在一份声明中说，研究人员成功监测到果蝇在学习过程中神经元突触的形成，而且发现睡眠会使新形成的神经元突触数目减少。
另一名研究人员杰弗里·唐利说，最令人吃惊的是，果蝇产生新的记忆只需要20万个脑细胞中的16个，这些细胞是让果蝇在一天中的特定时间作出特定举动的生物节奏系统的一部分。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Science，doi:10.1126/science.1166657，Jeffrey M. Donlea，Paul J. Shaw
Use-Dependent Plasticity in Clock Neurons Regulates Sleep Need in Drosophila
Jeffrey M. Donlea, Narendrakumar Ramanan, Paul J. Shaw*
Sleep is important for memory consolidation and is responsive to waking experience. Clock circuitry is uniquely positioned to coordinate interactions between processes underlying memory and sleep need. Flies increase sleep both after exposure to an enriched social environment and after protocols that induce long-term memory. We found that flies mutant for rutabaga, period, and blistered were deficient for experience-dependent increases in sleep. Rescue of each of these genes within the ventral lateral neurons (LNVs) restores increased sleep after social enrichment. Social experiences that induce increased sleep were associated with an increase in the number of synaptic terminals in the LNV projections into the medulla. The number of synaptic terminals was reduced during sleep and this decline was prevented by sleep deprivation.
1 Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University in St. Louis, 660 South Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
source:生物谷
