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Little-known cells might be key to human brain's massive memory
A new model of memory — and a little-heralded type of brain cell — might explain why the human brain has such a huge storage capacity, researchers reported in the journal PNAS in May.
The study looks at astrocytes, star-shaped cells that interact with neurons in the brain.
The brain contains billions of astrocytes, and scientists have long known they play a part in cleaning up molecules within brain synapses, the junctions where neurons come together.
More recent research, though, suggests that astrocytes do more.
The new model suggests the astrocytes could also be used for computation, coordinating with neurons and connecting synapses in networks.
These complex connections might allow the brain to encode memories in dense networks that expand the brain's capacity beyond its neurons alone, the researchers write. 'This makes neuron-astrocyte networks an exciting candidate for biological 'hardware' implementing Dense Associative Memory,' they add.
The model runs counter to the prevailing theory that memory storage occurs in synapses, and implies that the brain is capable of storing even more memories than once thought possible. The researchers also describe how the theory could be validated in the lab.
'We hope that one of the consequences of this work could be that experimentalists would consider this idea seriously and perform some experiments testing this hypothesis,' said Dmitry Krotov, a research staff member at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and IBM Research and the paper's senior author, in a news release.
The model could also be used as a 'fresh source of inspiration' for future artificial intelligence technology, the researchers conclude.
