Biomedical Frontiers: Winter 1995, Vol.2, No.2
Memory Loss Research

To deepen the understanding of the molecular changes that underlie normal memory loss and memory losses found in early stages of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, the Charles A. Dana Foundation since 1992 has supported Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center scientists.

"Our aim is to develop novel molecular, cognitive, and epidemiological approaches to normal age-related memory loss," says Dr. Eric Kandel, University Professor and senior investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "We hope that this will serve as the basis for the development of rational therapies that will reduce or even reverse cognitive decline."

The seven-project Columbia-Dana program, headed by Dr. Kandel and Dr. Lewis P. Rowland, chairman of neurology, is divided into three components: studies of implicit and explicit memory in normal human aging; studies of implicit and explicit memory in animal models of normal human aging; and education and training of professionals.

Implicit memory is concerned with perceiving or learning without awareness and is detected by an improvement in motor and perceptual skills and strategies and in elementary forms of reflexive learning such as habituation, sensitization, and classical conditioning. By contrast, explicit learning requires attention and conscious participation and deals with intentional recall of previous experience with people, places, and objects.

In humans, both forms of these memory decay with age, especially after age 60, with explicit memory deteriorating more rapidly and leading to the forgetfulness characteristic of aging.

CPMC coordinates its research with four other institutions- Harvard, Johns Hopkins University, Mount Sinai Medical Center, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine-that make up the Dana Consortium on Memory Loss and Aging.

A transgenic mouse (the smaller one) missing fyn, a tyrosine kinase gene, shows long-term potentiation deficits. These animal studies relate genes to learning and memory.