#hippocampus — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #hippocampus, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists discover previously unknown brainwave chains that organize memory during REM sleep
A recent study in rats suggests that during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, the brain uses repeating chains of rapid electrical waves to organize and replay memories in a highly specific manner. These high-frequency brainwave chains appear to foster communication between different brain regions and help regulate activity in the memory centers of the brain. The research was published in eLife.
Memory consolidation is the biological process of turning fleeting recent experiences into stable long-term memories. This process heavily relies on the interaction between two major brain areas. The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that initially records new memories, while the prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for complex thinking and long-term storage.
While scientists have long known that sharp electrical waves coordinate memory replay between the hippocampus and the cortex during deep non-REM (NREM) sleep, how REM sleep contributes to this dialogue remained murky. For instance, a 2016 study covered by PsyPost demonstrated that during deep sleep, sharp-wave ripples in the hippocampus dictate slow brainwave rhythms in the cortex to drive memory replay.
More recently, a 2024 study indicated that rapid ripples of electricity originating in the prefrontal cortex during NREM sleep actually suppress hippocampal activity. Other research, such as a 2012 study, found that REM sleep adjusts the overall excitability of hippocampal neurons.
The new study connects these threads by exploring how rapid-fire brainwave chains in the prefrontal cortex during REM sleep organize a distinct replay of memories and regulate hippocampal brain activity. The research, led by Justin D. Shin and Shantanu P. Jadhav, aimed to determine exactly how prefrontal and hippocampal dynamics differ during high-frequency electrical events across both NREM and REM sleep stages.
“Decades of research has established the role of reactivation in hippocampal and cortical regions of the brain during NREM sleep,” Jadhav, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Volen Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University and head of the Jadhav Lab, told PsyPost. “REM sleep stages, which are typically associated with dreaming, are known to be important for memory consolidation, but whether and how memory reactivation occurs in REM sleep is still unknown and debated.”
“The motivation for our study was to address this gap,” Jadhav explained. “We used spatial learning tasks in rodent models to investigate memory reactivation in REM sleep, and its relationship to NREM sleep reactivation, to shed light on sleep memory processes.”
To investigate this, the scientists monitored the brain activity of 10 adult rats as they learned a spatial memory task. The rats navigated a W-shaped maze to receive rewards, an activity that requires active communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. During the learning phase and the subsequent sleep sessions, the researchers continuously tracked the animals’ brain activity.
They surgically implanted arrays of microelectrodes, known as tetrodes, into both the prefrontal cortex and the CA1 region, a major subfield of the hippocampus that serves as a primary output zone for memory signals. This allowed the team to record both the broad electrical rhythms of the brain and the firing patterns of individual neurons. Using the ratio of different brainwave frequencies, the researchers categorized the rats’ sleep into NREM and REM stages.
During NREM sleep, the prefrontal cortex produces brief, rapid bursts of electrical activity known as ripples. The researchers noticed that these NREM ripples triggered massive, synchronous bursts of firing among prefrontal neurons. During REM sleep, the researchers detected similar rapid events, which they termed high-frequency oscillations (HFOs).
Unlike the single bursts seen in NREM sleep, REM HFOs tended to occur in repeating chains. These chains repeated roughly every 130 milliseconds, a timing that perfectly aligns with a slower, steady brain rhythm called the theta wave, which is highly active during REM sleep.
The neuron firing patterns during these REM HFO chains were highly structured. Instead of the massive bursts of widespread activity seen in NREM sleep, the overall background noise of the prefrontal cortex quieted down. Against this suppressed background, specific small groups of neurons fired in sparse, sequential patterns. This indicates that the prefrontal cortex replays memories in a much more precise and orderly sequence during REM sleep.
“A particularly surprising finding was that neural reactivation in REM sleep is organized differently compared to NREM sleep,” Jadhav said. “REM reactivation was sparse, involving smaller specific subsets of neurons in cortical regions, and temporally extended, lasting on the order of ~1 second. In contrast, NREM reactivation occurs in bursts of activity lasting ~100 msec.”
During these REM HFO chains, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus showed increased synchronization in the theta frequency range. The REM HFO chains also engaged a specific subset of neurons in the hippocampus. Interestingly, these were the exact same hippocampal neurons that were most strongly silenced during the prefrontal ripples of NREM sleep.
By tracking these specific hippocampal neurons over time, the researchers observed that they gradually increased their baseline firing rates across the sleep session. This provides evidence that the alternating stages of NREM and REM sleep work together to adjust and tune the excitability of memory circuits. The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which similarly found that memory consolidation during REM sleep relies on sparse, highly coordinated neural replay, though that study focused on fear memory rather than spatial learning.
“Our results show clear qualitative as well as quantitative differences in memory reactivation patterns in REM vs. NREM sleep in cortical-hippocampal regions,” Jadhav noted. “These findings suggest new mechanisms for how the two major sleep stages, NREM and REM sleep, together reactivate memories of daily experiences for selectively storing and integrating long-term memories.”
To better understand the biological mechanics driving these differences, the researchers built a computational model of the brain network. They focused on acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is highly concentrated in the brain during REM sleep but practically absent during NREM sleep.
“The study also included a modeling component, in which we were able to replicate the experimental results of distinct reactivation patterns in REM and NREM sleep using a model cortical network, based on known differences in the amount of a specific neuromodulator called acetylcholine,” Jadhav explained.
When the model simulated the low acetylcholine levels of NREM sleep, a small input triggered widespread, explosive bursts of neural activity. But when the model simulated the high acetylcholine levels of REM sleep, the network became more restrained. The high acetylcholine limited the spread of activity, perfectly recreating the sparse, sequential firing seen during the actual REM HFO chains.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The researchers could not directly link these REM-specific memory replay events to behavioral improvements on the spatial task. Future studies using tasks known to heavily depend on REM sleep might be necessary to map these brainwaves directly to learning outcomes.
“Our study provides phenomenological evidence for distinct physiological signatures of reactivation in REM and NREM sleep, but we have yet to show a direct link between this novel form of REM reactivation and memory consolidation,” Jadhav clarified.
Moving forward, the research team aims to test this direct link. “A major long-term goal is to establish that this REM reactivation process is required for memory consolidation, and dissect the complementary roles of REM and NREM sleep reactivation in long-term memory storage,” Jadhav stated. “Indeed, how these two sleep stages work together to mediate memory consolidation is a major outstanding question in the field.”
Additionally, the researchers could not perfectly separate REM sleep into its more granular sub-stages, known as tonic and phasic REM, because they did not record the rats’ eye movements. The data was also collected over a few hours rather than a full 24-hour cycle, which means the study did not capture how these sleep dynamics might shift over a full day and night.
“A second major line of research is to investigate the role of neuromodulators, chemicals in the brain which are largely responsible for the vastly different activity signatures seen in REM and NREM sleep,” Jadhav added.
The study, “REM sleep prefrontal high-frequency oscillation chains mediate distinct cortical – hippocampal reactivation patterns compared to NREM sleep,” was authored by Justin D. Shin, Michael Satchell, Paul Miller, and Shantanu P. Jadhav.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #REMsleep #memoryconsolidation #hippocampus #prefrontalcortex #neuraloscillations #highfrequencyoscillations #brainwaves #sleepresearch #corticalhippocampalcommunication #neuroscience
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists discover previously unknown brainwave chains that organize memory during REM sleep
A recent study in rats suggests that during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, the brain uses repeating chains of rapid electrical waves to organize and replay memories in a highly specific manner. These high-frequency brainwave chains appear to foster communication between different brain regions and help regulate activity in the memory centers of the brain. The research was published in eLife.
Memory consolidation is the biological process of turning fleeting recent experiences into stable long-term memories. This process heavily relies on the interaction between two major brain areas. The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that initially records new memories, while the prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for complex thinking and long-term storage.
While scientists have long known that sharp electrical waves coordinate memory replay between the hippocampus and the cortex during deep non-REM (NREM) sleep, how REM sleep contributes to this dialogue remained murky. For instance, a 2016 study covered by PsyPost demonstrated that during deep sleep, sharp-wave ripples in the hippocampus dictate slow brainwave rhythms in the cortex to drive memory replay.
More recently, a 2024 study indicated that rapid ripples of electricity originating in the prefrontal cortex during NREM sleep actually suppress hippocampal activity. Other research, such as a 2012 study, found that REM sleep adjusts the overall excitability of hippocampal neurons.
The new study connects these threads by exploring how rapid-fire brainwave chains in the prefrontal cortex during REM sleep organize a distinct replay of memories and regulate hippocampal brain activity. The research, led by Justin D. Shin and Shantanu P. Jadhav, aimed to determine exactly how prefrontal and hippocampal dynamics differ during high-frequency electrical events across both NREM and REM sleep stages.
“Decades of research has established the role of reactivation in hippocampal and cortical regions of the brain during NREM sleep,” Jadhav, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Volen Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University and head of the Jadhav Lab, told PsyPost. “REM sleep stages, which are typically associated with dreaming, are known to be important for memory consolidation, but whether and how memory reactivation occurs in REM sleep is still unknown and debated.”
“The motivation for our study was to address this gap,” Jadhav explained. “We used spatial learning tasks in rodent models to investigate memory reactivation in REM sleep, and its relationship to NREM sleep reactivation, to shed light on sleep memory processes.”
To investigate this, the scientists monitored the brain activity of 10 adult rats as they learned a spatial memory task. The rats navigated a W-shaped maze to receive rewards, an activity that requires active communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. During the learning phase and the subsequent sleep sessions, the researchers continuously tracked the animals’ brain activity.
They surgically implanted arrays of microelectrodes, known as tetrodes, into both the prefrontal cortex and the CA1 region, a major subfield of the hippocampus that serves as a primary output zone for memory signals. This allowed the team to record both the broad electrical rhythms of the brain and the firing patterns of individual neurons. Using the ratio of different brainwave frequencies, the researchers categorized the rats’ sleep into NREM and REM stages.
During NREM sleep, the prefrontal cortex produces brief, rapid bursts of electrical activity known as ripples. The researchers noticed that these NREM ripples triggered massive, synchronous bursts of firing among prefrontal neurons. During REM sleep, the researchers detected similar rapid events, which they termed high-frequency oscillations (HFOs).
Unlike the single bursts seen in NREM sleep, REM HFOs tended to occur in repeating chains. These chains repeated roughly every 130 milliseconds, a timing that perfectly aligns with a slower, steady brain rhythm called the theta wave, which is highly active during REM sleep.
The neuron firing patterns during these REM HFO chains were highly structured. Instead of the massive bursts of widespread activity seen in NREM sleep, the overall background noise of the prefrontal cortex quieted down. Against this suppressed background, specific small groups of neurons fired in sparse, sequential patterns. This indicates that the prefrontal cortex replays memories in a much more precise and orderly sequence during REM sleep.
“A particularly surprising finding was that neural reactivation in REM sleep is organized differently compared to NREM sleep,” Jadhav said. “REM reactivation was sparse, involving smaller specific subsets of neurons in cortical regions, and temporally extended, lasting on the order of ~1 second. In contrast, NREM reactivation occurs in bursts of activity lasting ~100 msec.”
During these REM HFO chains, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus showed increased synchronization in the theta frequency range. The REM HFO chains also engaged a specific subset of neurons in the hippocampus. Interestingly, these were the exact same hippocampal neurons that were most strongly silenced during the prefrontal ripples of NREM sleep.
By tracking these specific hippocampal neurons over time, the researchers observed that they gradually increased their baseline firing rates across the sleep session. This provides evidence that the alternating stages of NREM and REM sleep work together to adjust and tune the excitability of memory circuits. The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which similarly found that memory consolidation during REM sleep relies on sparse, highly coordinated neural replay, though that study focused on fear memory rather than spatial learning.
“Our results show clear qualitative as well as quantitative differences in memory reactivation patterns in REM vs. NREM sleep in cortical-hippocampal regions,” Jadhav noted. “These findings suggest new mechanisms for how the two major sleep stages, NREM and REM sleep, together reactivate memories of daily experiences for selectively storing and integrating long-term memories.”
To better understand the biological mechanics driving these differences, the researchers built a computational model of the brain network. They focused on acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is highly concentrated in the brain during REM sleep but practically absent during NREM sleep.
“The study also included a modeling component, in which we were able to replicate the experimental results of distinct reactivation patterns in REM and NREM sleep using a model cortical network, based on known differences in the amount of a specific neuromodulator called acetylcholine,” Jadhav explained.
When the model simulated the low acetylcholine levels of NREM sleep, a small input triggered widespread, explosive bursts of neural activity. But when the model simulated the high acetylcholine levels of REM sleep, the network became more restrained. The high acetylcholine limited the spread of activity, perfectly recreating the sparse, sequential firing seen during the actual REM HFO chains.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The researchers could not directly link these REM-specific memory replay events to behavioral improvements on the spatial task. Future studies using tasks known to heavily depend on REM sleep might be necessary to map these brainwaves directly to learning outcomes.
“Our study provides phenomenological evidence for distinct physiological signatures of reactivation in REM and NREM sleep, but we have yet to show a direct link between this novel form of REM reactivation and memory consolidation,” Jadhav clarified.
Moving forward, the research team aims to test this direct link. “A major long-term goal is to establish that this REM reactivation process is required for memory consolidation, and dissect the complementary roles of REM and NREM sleep reactivation in long-term memory storage,” Jadhav stated. “Indeed, how these two sleep stages work together to mediate memory consolidation is a major outstanding question in the field.”
Additionally, the researchers could not perfectly separate REM sleep into its more granular sub-stages, known as tonic and phasic REM, because they did not record the rats’ eye movements. The data was also collected over a few hours rather than a full 24-hour cycle, which means the study did not capture how these sleep dynamics might shift over a full day and night.
“A second major line of research is to investigate the role of neuromodulators, chemicals in the brain which are largely responsible for the vastly different activity signatures seen in REM and NREM sleep,” Jadhav added.
The study, “REM sleep prefrontal high-frequency oscillation chains mediate distinct cortical – hippocampal reactivation patterns compared to NREM sleep,” was authored by Justin D. Shin, Michael Satchell, Paul Miller, and Shantanu P. Jadhav.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #REMsleep #memoryconsolidation #hippocampus #prefrontalcortex #neuraloscillations #highfrequencyoscillations #brainwaves #sleepresearch #corticalhippocampalcommunication #neuroscience
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DATE: September 6, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Scientists discover previously unknown brainwave chains that organize memory during REM sleep
A recent study in rats suggests that during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, the brain uses repeating chains of rapid electrical waves to organize and replay memories in a highly specific manner. These high-frequency brainwave chains appear to foster communication between different brain regions and help regulate activity in the memory centers of the brain. The research was published in eLife.
Memory consolidation is the biological process of turning fleeting recent experiences into stable long-term memories. This process heavily relies on the interaction between two major brain areas. The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain that initially records new memories, while the prefrontal cortex is a region at the front of the brain responsible for complex thinking and long-term storage.
While scientists have long known that sharp electrical waves coordinate memory replay between the hippocampus and the cortex during deep non-REM (NREM) sleep, how REM sleep contributes to this dialogue remained murky. For instance, a 2016 study covered by PsyPost demonstrated that during deep sleep, sharp-wave ripples in the hippocampus dictate slow brainwave rhythms in the cortex to drive memory replay.
More recently, a 2024 study indicated that rapid ripples of electricity originating in the prefrontal cortex during NREM sleep actually suppress hippocampal activity. Other research, such as a 2012 study, found that REM sleep adjusts the overall excitability of hippocampal neurons.
The new study connects these threads by exploring how rapid-fire brainwave chains in the prefrontal cortex during REM sleep organize a distinct replay of memories and regulate hippocampal brain activity. The research, led by Justin D. Shin and Shantanu P. Jadhav, aimed to determine exactly how prefrontal and hippocampal dynamics differ during high-frequency electrical events across both NREM and REM sleep stages.
“Decades of research has established the role of reactivation in hippocampal and cortical regions of the brain during NREM sleep,” Jadhav, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Volen Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University and head of the Jadhav Lab, told PsyPost. “REM sleep stages, which are typically associated with dreaming, are known to be important for memory consolidation, but whether and how memory reactivation occurs in REM sleep is still unknown and debated.”
“The motivation for our study was to address this gap,” Jadhav explained. “We used spatial learning tasks in rodent models to investigate memory reactivation in REM sleep, and its relationship to NREM sleep reactivation, to shed light on sleep memory processes.”
To investigate this, the scientists monitored the brain activity of 10 adult rats as they learned a spatial memory task. The rats navigated a W-shaped maze to receive rewards, an activity that requires active communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. During the learning phase and the subsequent sleep sessions, the researchers continuously tracked the animals’ brain activity.
They surgically implanted arrays of microelectrodes, known as tetrodes, into both the prefrontal cortex and the CA1 region, a major subfield of the hippocampus that serves as a primary output zone for memory signals. This allowed the team to record both the broad electrical rhythms of the brain and the firing patterns of individual neurons. Using the ratio of different brainwave frequencies, the researchers categorized the rats’ sleep into NREM and REM stages.
During NREM sleep, the prefrontal cortex produces brief, rapid bursts of electrical activity known as ripples. The researchers noticed that these NREM ripples triggered massive, synchronous bursts of firing among prefrontal neurons. During REM sleep, the researchers detected similar rapid events, which they termed high-frequency oscillations (HFOs).
Unlike the single bursts seen in NREM sleep, REM HFOs tended to occur in repeating chains. These chains repeated roughly every 130 milliseconds, a timing that perfectly aligns with a slower, steady brain rhythm called the theta wave, which is highly active during REM sleep.
The neuron firing patterns during these REM HFO chains were highly structured. Instead of the massive bursts of widespread activity seen in NREM sleep, the overall background noise of the prefrontal cortex quieted down. Against this suppressed background, specific small groups of neurons fired in sparse, sequential patterns. This indicates that the prefrontal cortex replays memories in a much more precise and orderly sequence during REM sleep.
“A particularly surprising finding was that neural reactivation in REM sleep is organized differently compared to NREM sleep,” Jadhav said. “REM reactivation was sparse, involving smaller specific subsets of neurons in cortical regions, and temporally extended, lasting on the order of ~1 second. In contrast, NREM reactivation occurs in bursts of activity lasting ~100 msec.”
During these REM HFO chains, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus showed increased synchronization in the theta frequency range. The REM HFO chains also engaged a specific subset of neurons in the hippocampus. Interestingly, these were the exact same hippocampal neurons that were most strongly silenced during the prefrontal ripples of NREM sleep.
By tracking these specific hippocampal neurons over time, the researchers observed that they gradually increased their baseline firing rates across the sleep session. This provides evidence that the alternating stages of NREM and REM sleep work together to adjust and tune the excitability of memory circuits. The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025, which similarly found that memory consolidation during REM sleep relies on sparse, highly coordinated neural replay, though that study focused on fear memory rather than spatial learning.
“Our results show clear qualitative as well as quantitative differences in memory reactivation patterns in REM vs. NREM sleep in cortical-hippocampal regions,” Jadhav noted. “These findings suggest new mechanisms for how the two major sleep stages, NREM and REM sleep, together reactivate memories of daily experiences for selectively storing and integrating long-term memories.”
To better understand the biological mechanics driving these differences, the researchers built a computational model of the brain network. They focused on acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is highly concentrated in the brain during REM sleep but practically absent during NREM sleep.
“The study also included a modeling component, in which we were able to replicate the experimental results of distinct reactivation patterns in REM and NREM sleep using a model cortical network, based on known differences in the amount of a specific neuromodulator called acetylcholine,” Jadhav explained.
When the model simulated the low acetylcholine levels of NREM sleep, a small input triggered widespread, explosive bursts of neural activity. But when the model simulated the high acetylcholine levels of REM sleep, the network became more restrained. The high acetylcholine limited the spread of activity, perfectly recreating the sparse, sequential firing seen during the actual REM HFO chains.
There are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The researchers could not directly link these REM-specific memory replay events to behavioral improvements on the spatial task. Future studies using tasks known to heavily depend on REM sleep might be necessary to map these brainwaves directly to learning outcomes.
“Our study provides phenomenological evidence for distinct physiological signatures of reactivation in REM and NREM sleep, but we have yet to show a direct link between this novel form of REM reactivation and memory consolidation,” Jadhav clarified.
Moving forward, the research team aims to test this direct link. “A major long-term goal is to establish that this REM reactivation process is required for memory consolidation, and dissect the complementary roles of REM and NREM sleep reactivation in long-term memory storage,” Jadhav stated. “Indeed, how these two sleep stages work together to mediate memory consolidation is a major outstanding question in the field.”
Additionally, the researchers could not perfectly separate REM sleep into its more granular sub-stages, known as tonic and phasic REM, because they did not record the rats’ eye movements. The data was also collected over a few hours rather than a full 24-hour cycle, which means the study did not capture how these sleep dynamics might shift over a full day and night.
“A second major line of research is to investigate the role of neuromodulators, chemicals in the brain which are largely responsible for the vastly different activity signatures seen in REM and NREM sleep,” Jadhav added.
The study, “REM sleep prefrontal high-frequency oscillation chains mediate distinct cortical – hippocampal reactivation patterns compared to NREM sleep,” was authored by Justin D. Shin, Michael Satchell, Paul Miller, and Shantanu P. Jadhav.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #REMsleep #memoryconsolidation #hippocampus #prefrontalcortex #neuraloscillations #highfrequencyoscillations #brainwaves #sleepresearch #corticalhippocampalcommunication #neuroscience
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DATE: September 4, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Regular coffee beats decaf in protecting the brain from chronic stress, mouse study finds
Regular coffee consumption might do more than just wake you up; it appears to protect the brain against the damaging effects of chronic stress. A new study in mice found that drinking caffeinated coffee prevented stress-induced memory loss and mood deterioration, while decaffeinated coffee offered no such benefits. The findings, published in Neurobiology of Stress, suggest that caffeine is the primary ingredient responsible for coffee’s mood-protecting properties.
For years, researchers have tried to understand the relationship between dietary habits and mental health. Epidemiological evidence frequently points to coffee as a protective beverage. For example, a study covered by PsyPost in 2026 indicated that moderate coffee consumption is associated with a lower risk of mood and stress disorders. These population studies raised an interesting question about which specific parts of the complex beverage drive these benefits.
Scientific investigations have built a case for caffeine as the active ingredient. As an example, a 2011 study of women found that drinking regular caffeinated coffee was linked to a lower risk of depression, whereas decaffeinated coffee offered no such protection. Following this, a 2015 study in mice demonstrated that pure caffeine prevents the mood and memory problems normally triggered by long-term stress. Yet, a 2018 analysis showed that decaf coffee still contains nearly all of the same healthy antioxidants as regular coffee, leaving scientists wondering if other nutrients in the beverage also played a role.
To settle whether caffeine is truly the essential ingredient for stress resilience, Ângelo R. Tomé and Rodrigo A. Cunha of the University of Coimbra led a research team to directly compare the effects of regular and decaffeinated coffee. They focused on how these beverages affected mice exposed to chronic unpredictable stress.
Chronic unpredictable stress is a laboratory model used to mimic human depression and anxiety. By exposing animals to mild, changing stressors over a period of several weeks, scientists can observe the resulting emotional and cognitive decline. The research team also wanted to look closely at changes in the brain, specifically measuring long-term potentiation and brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
Long-term potentiation is a process where the connections between neurons strengthen, serving as a cellular foundation for learning and memory. This activity is heavily concentrated in the hippocampus, a brain region dedicated to forming memories. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor is a protein that acts like a fertilizer for the brain, helping neurons grow and survive. The researchers measured this protein in the frontal cortex, an area heavily involved in complex behaviors and emotional regulation.
The research team studied 24 adult mice, dividing them into four groups. One group drank water and experienced no stress. The other three groups underwent three weeks of chronic unpredictable stress. During this time, they experienced random daily stressors, such as damp bedding, a brief cold bath, or having their cage tilted. One of the stressed groups drank regular water, another drank a caffeinated coffee extract, and the final group drank a decaffeinated coffee extract.
The mice received their respective beverages during their active nighttime hours, starting a week before the stress protocol began and continuing throughout the experiment. The amount of coffee the mice voluntarily drank roughly translated to an adult human consuming about 350 milligrams of caffeine a day, or roughly two to three standard cups of coffee.
Following the three weeks of stress, the researchers put the mice through a series of behavioral tests. They used an open field arena to measure spontaneous movement and general anxiety. They also evaluated anxiety by seeing how much time the mice spent in the unprotected open arms of an elevated maze. To assess depressive-like behaviors, the team observed the mice in a forced swimming test, recording how quickly they gave up struggling and simply floated.
The team sprayed a sticky sugar solution on the mice for a splash test, measuring how quickly they cleaned themselves as a sign of motivation and self-care. They also tracked whether the mice lost their natural preference for drinking a sweet sugar water solution. A loss of this preference serves as an indicator of anhedonia, which is the inability to feel pleasure.
Finally, the researchers tested spatial memory. They watched whether the mice could recognize when a familiar object had been moved to a new location in a testing arena. They also tested whether the mice preferred to explore a newly opened arm of a maze they had previously navigated.
The results showed that chronic unpredictable stress took a heavy toll on the mice drinking plain water. Compared to the unstressed controls, these mice lost weight, displayed heightened anxiety, and showed a pronounced lack of self-care. They also exhibited severe anhedonia, drinking much less sugar water than usual. Their spatial memory suffered, as they struggled to notice moved objects or explore new areas of the maze.
However, the mice that drank caffeinated coffee weathered the stress remarkably well. Their behavioral patterns were nearly identical to the control mice that experienced no stress at all. The caffeinated coffee prevented the weight loss, the anxiety, the despair in the swimming test, and the loss of motivation for self-care. It also fully protected their spatial memory.
The decaffeinated coffee failed to provide these robust protections. The stressed mice drinking decaf exhibited almost all the same behavioral deficits as the stressed mice drinking water. They failed to recover their body weight, remained anxious in the open field and maze tests, and showed persistent memory issues. While the decaf group showed very slight improvements in a few areas, these small changes were not statistically meaningful.
The brain tissue analysis provided a biological explanation for the behavioral differences. In the stressed mice drinking water, the magnitude of long-term potentiation in the hippocampus dropped from a roughly 61 percent baseline increase down to just 25 percent, indicating a severe disruption in memory-forming capacity. The levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in their frontal cortex also plummeted.
Drinking caffeinated coffee completely prevented these neurological declines. The mice in this group maintained normal long-term potentiation and normal levels of the neurotrophic protein, keeping their brain networks highly functional despite the chronic stress. Just as with the behavioral tests, decaffeinated coffee offered no protection for the brain, leaving the mice with diminished synaptic plasticity and depleted protein levels.
The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2024, which found that caffeine protects rodents from stress-induced spatial memory deficits and hippocampal impairment. They also align with a study covered by PsyPost in 2025, which demonstrated that caffeine prevents stress-induced depressive-like behaviors and preserves neurochemical balance in mice.
However, the results are in tension with another study covered by PsyPost in 2024. That study found that non-caffeine compounds in coffee protected against stress-induced cognitive deficits. It is worth noting that the earlier research tested isolated coffee polyphenols during early development, rather than using whole decaffeinated coffee in adult mice exposed to chronic stress, which likely explains the differing outcomes.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study did not measure the exact circulating levels of caffeine or other specific compounds in the blood or tissues of the mice. Because the animals were housed in small groups during the fluid consumption phase to avoid the added stress of isolation, the researchers could not track the precise individual intake for every single mouse.
The testing was also performed on a mixed group of male and female mice without isolating sex as a variable. Past studies suggest there may be discrete differences in how coffee impacts mood in males compared to females, which this study design could not explore. Finally, translating behavioral and brain changes from mice to humans always requires caution, as human diets, stress factors, and brain chemistry are far more complex.
The study, “Regular intake of caffeinated but not decaffeinated coffee attenuates behavioral modifications in mice subject to chronic unpredictable stress,” was authored by Ângelo R. Tomé, Nuno J. Machado, Ana Paula Ardais, Ana Nunes, Henrique B. Silva, Manuella P. Kaster, Paula Agostinho, and Rodrigo A. Cunha.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #coffee #caffeine #stressrelief #brainhealth #memory #mousestudy #neuroplasticity #hippocampus #anxiety #moodboost
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DATE: September 3, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: The surprising reason our memories become blurred as we age, according to new neuroscience research
As people get older, their brains may shift how they process and store complex memories, moving from accurately recreating specific past events to blending them into broad, inaccurate categories. This change in brain function helps explain why older adults often experience memory errors in everyday life. The findings were published in the Cerebral Cortex.
The hippocampus is a small, seahorse-shaped structure located deep within the brain that is essential for learning and memory. It helps form episodic memories, which involve linking together the specific details of a past event. A 2016 study demonstrated that the hippocampus helps retrieve these memories by re-creating the precise neural activity patterns that were present when the event was first experienced.
These neural patterns are thought to be strengthened over time after learning, a process known as memory consolidation. For instance, a study covered by PsyPost in 2024 indicated that sleep, compared to wakefulness, helps consolidate weakly formed associations, binding different elements of an event together. However, as people grow older, this memory-binding process often becomes less precise.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a brain-scanning technique that measures neural activity by tracking changes in blood flow, scientists have recently made strides in observing this hidden phase.
“Over the past decade, research in young adults has revealed consistent evidence that we can use fMRI to understand memory storage processes (called consolidation),” said study author Ian M. McDonough, an associate professor of psychology at Binghamton University. “This is exciting because the storage process has been well validated in animals, but previously unreachable in humans, making it more theoretical and inferred than actually measurable. Given that I do aging research, I thought that this new ability to test this consolidation stage might help us understand why memory declines in old age.”
Instead of failing to link information, older adults sometimes associate too many unrelated details. A 2024 review suggested that older adults tend to form excessive, unintended associations, leading to memory confusion.
“Memory for specific associations (e.g., faces and names) we have are not simply more likely to be forgotten as we get older, but instead we are more likely to confuse the associations with other associations,” McDonough explained. “These memory confusions start in middle-age and are partially due to changes in how our memory center of the brain (the hippocampus) works.”
The authors of the new study wanted to see how the brain’s replay of information shifts across the adult lifespan, tracking how memory patterns change from the moment something is learned to when it is recalled.
“A lot of studies investigating brain function focus on one stage of the memory process (learning, storage, or retrieval),” McDonough said. “More studies are needed like this one that take a holistic perspective and attempt to integrate brain measures across these stages because they are not independent.”
For the new study, McDonough and his co-author, Destaw B. Mekbib, recruited 61 adults separated into three age groups. The sample included 17 younger adults aged 18 to 30, 21 middle-aged adults aged 50 to 60, and 23 older adults aged 61 to 74. The participants underwent fMRI scanning to observe their brain activity during the experiment.
While in the scanner, participants completed a memory task that began with a learning phase. They viewed 64 visual pairings, each featuring a neutral human face presented alongside either an everyday object or a scene. Following this learning period, the participants rested quietly with their eyes closed for five minutes while the scanner recorded their baseline brain activity.
Finally, the participants completed a memory test. They were shown the previously studied faces and asked to select the correct associated object or scene from four different options. The researchers analyzed the data to see how closely the brain activity patterns in the hippocampus matched across the three phases: learning, resting, and remembering.
The results showed a decline in memory accuracy as age increased. Younger adults correctly identified the matching pairs 36 percent of the time, while middle-aged adults answered correctly 24 percent of the time, and older adults scored 20 percent. Forgetting rates, defined as failing to make any choice before the time ran out, did not differ significantly among the three age groups.
When looking at the brain scans, the researchers found that hippocampal activity patterns generally became less stable and less consistent with increasing age. In younger adults, a high degree of similarity in brain patterns between the learning phase and the memory test predicted better overall accuracy and less forgetting. This suggests that their brains were successfully reinstating the specific details of the initial experience.
For older adults, this relationship took a different form. High pattern similarity across the memory phases actually predicted an increase in a specific type of mistake. Older adults with closely matching brain patterns across the learning, resting, and testing phases were more prone to category-level errors, such as mistakenly selecting a scene when the correct answer was an object.
“We expected that as people age, they would simply show ‘less’ of the same brain patterns that young adults show,” McDonough said. “Instead, we found that the same ‘helpful’ brain patterns linked with accurate memory in young adults were associated with memory confusions in older age. That is, those ‘helpful’ brain patterns in young were now ‘harmful’ brain patterns in older adults rather than older adults simply showing fewer of the ‘helpful’ brain patterns.”
The data also highlighted the distinct neural profile of middle age. “One misinterpretation is that although episodic memory does start to decline in middle-age, the brain patterns we found were not the same in middle and old age,” McDonough noted. “Middle-age sits in between the two age bands, which means that when young adults show positive relationships between the hippocampal patterns and memory, older adults show negative relationships, then middle-age doesn’t always show much of a relationship. So this means the brain patterns in middle-aged adults don’t look like younger or older adults exactly.”
These findings suggest that as people age, the brain may shift from replaying precise, detailed memories to replaying broader, overlapping information. The researchers tested whether physical shrinkage of the hippocampus could explain these changes, but factoring in hippocampal volume did not alter the results. The memory errors were driven by how the brain functioned and organized information across the different memory phases, rather than just the physical size of the brain region.
While these functional brain changes help explain memory decline, they are only part of the puzzle. “Although we found strong declines in episodic memory with age (which replicated decades of studies in this area), the brain effects were modest,” McDonough told PsyPost. “We explained about 30% of that age decline in memory accuracy, leaving a lot left to figure out.”
The results align with a 2016 study covered by PsyPost, which indicated that older age is associated with a progressive loss of cohesive, coordinated brain activity during memory tasks. While that earlier research measured whole-brain network synchronization, the new study examined fine-grained representational stability within the hippocampus, assessing how consistently the brain reproduces the precise patterns of neural activity that code for a specific piece of information. The findings are also in line with research covered by PsyPost in 2025 showing that aging degrades the precision of brain representations during learning.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study focused almost exclusively on the hippocampus, but memory relies on a broad network of interconnected brain regions. Future research will need to explore how other areas, such as the outer layers of the brain known as the cortex, contribute to these memory transformations.
Additionally, overlapping brain patterns do not exclusively indicate that a memory is being replayed. Similar brain activity could also reflect general similarities in how a person is paying attention or processing visual information during different parts of the experiment. The participant sample also lacked individuals between the ages of 31 and 49, meaning the researchers could not map a continuous, year-by-year trajectory of how these brain changes unfold across the entire adult lifespan.
These results also require broader confirmation. “One large caveat is that the brain patterns in middle-age and older adults need to be replicated in a separate group of people,” McDonough said.
Looking ahead, the researchers hope to explore ways to actively improve memory storage. These future approaches might include neurofeedback, which teaches people to voluntarily regulate their brain activity by showing them real-time readouts of their brainwaves, or neurostimulation, which applies mild electrical or magnetic pulses to stimulate targeted areas of the brain.
“Our long-term goals are to keep understanding how the brain prioritizes information during the memory storage phase and how we can leverage existing tools to change the brain during this phase to enhance memory,” McDonough said. “We are particularly interested in neurofeedback and neurostimulation techniques as a way to directly modify brain activity to enhance memory in old age.”
The study, “Aging shifts hippocampal reactivation from selective reinstatement to category-level misbinding during episodic memory,” was authored by Destaw B. Mekbib and Ian M. McDonough.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MemoryAging #Hippocampus #EpisodicMemory #Neuroscience #AgingAndMemory #Neurofeedback #Neurostimulation #MemoryConsolidation #BrainImagining #CerebralCortex
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Know the difference between Hippocampus and Hippo Campus
🧠🎓🦛
#KätToon #Hippocampus #Hippo #Brain #campus -
DATE: August 25, 2026 at 01:06AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: Depression may shut down the brain’s ability to make new neurons
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260823094135.htm
A major study found that adults with depression show disrupted production of new neurons in the hippocampus, potentially weakening the brain’s ability to separate new experiences from painful memories. The researchers also identified broad molecular changes that could open the door to new treatments tailored to different biological forms of depression.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260823094135.htm
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DATE: August 25, 2026 at 01:06AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEEDTITLE: Depression may shut down the brain’s ability to make new neurons
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260823094135.htm
A major study found that adults with depression show disrupted production of new neurons in the hippocampus, potentially weakening the brain’s ability to separate new experiences from painful memories. The researchers also identified broad molecular changes that could open the door to new treatments tailored to different biological forms of depression.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260823094135.htm
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DATE: August 25, 2026 at 01:06AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Depression may shut down the brain’s ability to make new neurons
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260823094135.htm
A major study found that adults with depression show disrupted production of new neurons in the hippocampus, potentially weakening the brain’s ability to separate new experiences from painful memories. The researchers also identified broad molecular changes that could open the door to new treatments tailored to different biological forms of depression.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260823094135.htm
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DATE: August 25, 2026 at 07:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Neuroscientists map how early-life scent memories evolve and move through the brain
The scent of a particular perfume or a childhood home can often bring back vivid, emotionally charged memories from a person’s earliest years. A recent study on mice suggests that these early-life scent memories are initially stored by specific neurons that develop just after birth, but as time passes and the scent is encountered again, the memory trace relocates to broader networks in the brain. The research, published in PLOS Biology, provides evidence for how the brain encodes, sustains, and eventually reorganizes our most cherished childhood memories.
Scent-triggered memories are a well-documented psychological phenomenon, famously described by Marcel Proust as a flood of vivid nostalgic feelings brought on by the smell of a madeleine cake. In humans, autobiographical memories linked to scents tend to originate from the first decade of life. These memories also tend to carry a much stronger, more positive emotional tone than memories triggered by sights or sounds.
Supporting this idea, a 2016 review indicated that scents tied to positive personal memories have a uniquely powerful impact on a person’s mood, often increasing positive emotions and reducing physiological signs of stress. Despite this well-known emotional potency, the exact ways the brain creates and stores these long-lasting scent memories have remained somewhat mysterious.
When a person or animal smells something, the information first enters the olfactory bulb, a small structure at the front of the brain. Within this structure, specific neurons called granule cells help process the scent. In rodents, a massive wave of these granule cells is born on the very first day of life. Because these neonatal neurons are highly active during childhood and tend to survive for a long time, scientists suspected they might be ideal candidates for storing early-life scent memories.
Memory researchers also know that the brain’s storage systems do not remain static. According to a framework discussed in a 2018 review, memories often shift between different brain areas as time passes. A memory might initially rely on specific regions, like the hippocampus, before being reorganized and transferred to broader networks in the brain’s outer layers.
“I have been interested in odor perception and in the mechanisms of brain plasticity underlying olfactory learning since my PhD in Lyon, and later during my postdoctoral research at Cornell University,” said study author Nathalie Mandairon, a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) based at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center. “This study therefore follows naturally from my previous research.”
“The question that particularly intrigued me was this: during childhood, we are exposed to a multitude of odors,” Mandairon continued. “Why do some of them remain embedded in our memory for decades, while others disappear? And what brain mechanisms allow these very early olfactory memories to persist or resurface later in life?”
To find out, the research team began by surveying 647 adults about their earliest scent-based memories. “We found that this memory generally dated back to childhood, before the age of 10,” Mandairon explained. “They were most often associated with a pleasant odor, but also with a particularly positive, sometimes joyful, context.”
“In most cases, the experience had also been repeated several times during childhood,” she added. “Based on these observations, we developed a mouse model to investigate the brain mechanisms involved in the formation and long-term maintenance of this early olfactory memory.”
During the mouse equivalent of childhood, the researchers placed the animals in a large, enriched cage filled with toys, tunnels, and opportunities for social interaction. They paired this playful environment with a specific attractive odorant over five separate sessions. Microphones recorded the mice emitting a higher number and frequency of high-pitched squeaks, known as ultrasonic vocalizations, which indicates a positive emotional state.
When the mice reached young adulthood, at two months of age, the researchers tested their reactions to the childhood odorant. The mice that had experienced the scent in the playful environment spent more time investigating it compared to a control group that had smelled the same scent in a standard, non-playful cage.
To understand what was happening in the brain at this two-month mark, the researchers looked at granule cells born on the mice’s first day of life. “Our results revealed an important role for neurons in the olfactory bulb that are generated at birth,” Mandairon said. “These neurons are highly plastic and, together with the brain’s reward system, contribute to the memory of an odor learned very early in life.”
To test whether these neurons were strictly necessary for the memory, the scientists used optogenetics, a technique that allows researchers to turn specific brain cells on or off using light. When they used light to temporarily silence these early-born granule cells, the mice no longer showed a preference for the childhood scent.
The researchers also examined broader brain activity in the young adult mice. They found that smelling the childhood odorant triggered highly synchronized activity between the brain’s reward centers and memory systems. This network included areas like the dorsal hippocampus, which is involved in detailed memories, and the medial prefrontal cortex, which handles complex decision-making.
Next, the team investigated how this memory held up as the mice aged into later adulthood, at six months old. “We also found that, later in life, mice retained the memory of this odor only if they had been occasionally re-exposed to it during adulthood,” Mandairon told PsyPost. “Without such re-exposure, their preference for that particular odor disappeared.”
However, if the researchers briefly re-exposed the mice to the scent every three weeks, the positive memory persisted at six months of age. Surprisingly, this long-lasting memory no longer relied on the neonatal granule cells in the olfactory bulb. The light-based silencing technique that worked at two months had no effect at six months.
The researchers had expected a brain structure so directly involved in processing odors to continue playing a central role in olfactory memory. “Instead, over time, other brain circuits, particularly those associated with emotions, seem to take over,” Mandairon said.
“What is particularly interesting is that the brain circuits supporting the memory appear to change over time,” she explained. “In adulthood, the contribution of the olfactory bulb and the reward system decreases, while regions of the limbic system, which is strongly involved in emotions, become more important. In other words, the memory can persist, but the brain mechanisms supporting it seem to evolve throughout life.”
These network shifts are in line with a study covered by PsyPost in 2016, which found that early-life memories in young rats persist into adulthood as latent traces that can be reactivated by later reminder cues. The findings also align with another 2016 study covered by PsyPost, which found that worms form lifelong olfactory memories using specialized neural circuits. It is worth noting, however, that both of those previous studies examined the formation of aversive memories in response to threats, whereas the current study measured the development of positive odor associations in mice.
One detail to keep in mind is that modeling human autobiographical memory in rodents comes with inherent limitations. “Although the anatomical and functional organization of the olfactory system shares many similarities between mice and humans, the study was conducted using a mouse model,” Mandairon cautioned. “Our study primarily allows us to identify general principles and brain mechanisms that can then be investigated further in humans.”
Moving forward, the research team hopes to uncover the specific conditions that make some scent associations permanent while others fade. “We would like to determine whether there is a common ‘recipe’ that allows an odor encountered during childhood to become a memory that stays with us for a lifetime: what the odor was, the context in which it was encountered, who we were with, the emotions we experienced,” Mandairon said.
The study, “Positive early-life olfactory memory is rooted in the olfactory bulb and triggers large-scale changes beyond the olfactory system,” was authored by Jules Dejou, Anna Athanassi, Théo Brunel, Marc Thevenet, Anne Didier, and Nathalie Mandairon.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #OlfactoryMemory #EarlyLifeScent #Neuroscience #MemoryFormation #OlfactoryBulb #NeuralPlasticity #Hippocampus #LimbicSystem #MoodAndMemory #PLOSBiology
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New preprint dropped: __Systemic diazepam alters local hippocampal CA1 circuits and differentially affects entorhinal and CA3 inputs__
Peterson et al. (2026) #bioRxiv
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.18.745488v1
Really cool and amazing results that systemic diazepam obliterates hippocampal #sharpWaveRipples in vivo, particularly during the post-task rest, and disrupts representations during running.
Implies important issues that diazepam's side effects on consolidation really ought to be looked at. (All the diazepam memory tests we could find in the literature are short-term tests, no one seems to have looked at long-term consolidation, but would love citations if people have them.)
PS. To be honest, though, my favorite figure is the proof-of-efficacy in Figure 2 where decreased spiking cross-correlation directly reveals diazepam's effects on inhibition. It's so clean!
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A study of gene expression in cells of the hippocampus in patients with major depressive disorder found that, in comparison to controls, depression as associated with a reduction in neurogenesis.
Summary: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-brain-cell-formation-stalls-adults.html
Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04571-8
#Science #MentalHealth #Depression #Hippocampus #Neurogenesis
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@elduvelle_neuro As a physicist, I’d say…I mean, the direction is at least correct, isn’t it? It’s pointing toward the 🐁‘s front end. Everything beyond…that’s probably a matter for the #hippocampus crowd 😅
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This is mostly for the #Hippocampus crowd...
... anything wrong with this picture?
source: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.30.735500v2.full
#Hippocampus #BrainAnatomy #IsThisAHippocampusOrIsItNeckMuscles?
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DATE: August 15, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Adolescent binge drinking permanently alters adult brain sensitivity to alcohol
Heavy drinking during adolescence may leave the adult brain unusually sensitive to alcohol, according to a study published in Molecular Psychiatry. Experiments in male mice found that binge-like drinking during adolescence permanently changed how alcohol affected hippocampal nerve cells, although the altered response was reduced by the medication baclofen.
Adolescence is a period of rapid brain development. Systems involved in seeking rewards become highly active during the teenage years, while brain regions responsible for planning and self-control continue maturing. This imbalance may make adolescents more likely to take risks, including consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short period.
Previous animal studies have linked heavy adolescent drinking with lasting changes in memory, anxiety, impulsivity, and responses to alcohol. However, scientists have known less about the specific cellular processes that could make the developing brain especially vulnerable.
The new study focused on GIRK channels, which are structures in nerve cells that allow potassium to move across the cell membrane. Their activity generally makes nerve cells less likely to fire. Alcohol can activate these channels, helping produce some of alcohol’s effects on the brain. The researchers also examined activin A, a signaling protein involved in brain development, learning, and emotional behavior.
In the study conducted by researchers at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, Germany, the team worked with male mice. The animals were either adolescents, approximately 30 to 45 days old, or adults aged three to five months. Adolescent mice were given access to 20% alcohol during their active period for about two weeks. They were then kept alcohol-free until adulthood.
Electrical activity was recorded from nerve cells in the hippocampus, a brain region important for memory and involved in alcohol-related effects. In mice that had never consumed alcohol, activin A had opposite effects depending on age. It increased the cells’ sensitivity to alcohol during adolescence but reduced alcohol sensitivity in adulthood.
This developmental change normally acted like a switch. However, mice that had consumed alcohol heavily during adolescence did not show the usual adult response. Even after a lengthy alcohol-free period, their adult hippocampal cells remained highly sensitive to alcohol.
The altered cells showed stronger GIRK channel activity and became less likely to fire when exposed to alcohol. In some experiments, alcohol suppressed the firing of most tested nerve cells from mice with adolescent drinking experience.
The team also tested baclofen, a drug that activates GIRK channels and is sometimes prescribed off-label (meaning it is used for a condition it was not officially approved to treat) for alcohol use disorders. In the mouse brain slices, baclofen reduced the unusually large alcohol-induced GIRK response seen after adolescent drinking. The researchers noted: “This finding introduces not only a putative [proposed] new mechanism of therapeutic action, but, with the hippocampus, also a new site of action, with direct implications for [alcohol use disorder]-associated cognitive deficits and affective [mood] disorders.”
The study has several important limitations. For instance, the experiments focused mainly on the hippocampus, while alcohol affects many brain areas. Additionally, the study utilized mice exposed to alcohol for only two weeks, and thus its drinking model may not reflect the variety, duration, or social context of adolescent alcohol use in humans.
The study, “Heavy adolescent drinking makes the adult brain more vulnerable to ethanol by permanently altering the age-dependent interplay between alcohol, GIRK channels and activin,” was authored by Sophia Stürzenberger, Nicolas Bülow, Liubov S. Kalinichenko, Rebecca Licha, Volker Eulenburg, Marc Dahlmanns, Christian P. Müller, Fang Zheng, and Christian Alzheimer.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AdolescentDrinking #AlcoholResearch #BrainDevelopment #GIRKChannels #ActivinA #Hippocampus #AlcoholSensitivity #Baclofen #MolecularPsychiatry #ADHDtoAlcoholImpact
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Taxi Drivers Rarely Die Of Alzheimer’s – How Complex Mental Maps And Spatial Reasoning Protect Your Brain [why knowing your way around might help you stay sharp]
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https://theconversation.com/taxi-drivers-rarely-die-of-alzheimers-how-complex-mental-maps-and-spatial-reasoning-protect-your-brain-286650 <-- shared technical article
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https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2024-082194 <-- shared paper
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https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597 <-- shared paper
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-018-0031-x <-- shared paper
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https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/learn-the-knowledge-of-london <-- details of @Transport for London’s ‘The Knowledge’ details
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https://youtu.be/u7gp8KBP7ak?si=X1xXcysZF2LayFkx <-- shared video, ‘The People Who Have To Remember 25,000 Streets | The [London] Knowledge - The World's Toughest Taxi Test’
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H/T @ Jennifer Psillas, GISP | GIS Project Manager at City of Tucson Parks and Recreation
“Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the death certificates of nearly 9 million people in the U.S…
Of the 9 million death certificates from January 2020 to December 2022 that researchers examined, taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest risk of dying from Alzheimer’s disease out of 443 occupations. After adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity and education, roughly 1 in 100 taxi and ambulance drivers died of Alzheimer’s, compared with 1 in 60 people overall.
This pattern did not extend to other driving jobs. The researchers concluded that the key to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s was not driving itself but continuous real-time navigation: the constant work of locating yourself in space, tracking a destination and updating a mental map as conditions change. Drivers whose jobs relied on fixed or predetermined routes, like bus drivers and aircraft pilots, didn’t seem to experience a similar advantage.
Researchers believe the association between navigation-heavy work and lower Alzheimer’s risk centers on the hippocampus, a part of the brain that governs memory and spatial navigation. It’s one of the first brain regions that Alzheimer’s damages: Problems with spatial navigation and orientation are among the earliest signs of the disease, sometimes surfacing before obvious memory loss.
In one landmark 2000 study [link above], neuroscientists compared the brains of licensed London taxi drivers with those of people who did not drive cabs. Their findings provided the first evidence via structural imaging that regions of the adult brain can measurably change under sustained navigational demand. To earn a license, London cabbies must memorize more than 25,000 streets within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross, a challenge known as “The Knowledge” that takes three to four years…”
#spatialnavigation #orientation #mental #acuity #taxi #ambulance #paramedic #TheKnowledge #London #UK #Alzheimer #mapping #mentalmaps #spatialmapping #navigation #spatialreasoning #brain #hippocampus #brainhealth #death #mortality #disease #publichealth #scans #occupation #job -
To any #Hippocampus researchers out there:
"representational drift" - is it good or bad?In the early #PlaceCells days, we would have said a neuron is not a place cell if it's not stable with time.
Now, drift is often interpreted as a marker of "temporal coding" or "flexibility".
What do you think? -
At 50, the Brain's Resident Immune Cells Begin to Give Way
If this matters to you, share it.
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…During pursuit, sweeps narrow and track a moving target; after sudden target changes, they reorient before the animal turns; during backward locomotion, they reverse; and even during #REM sleep, sweep structure is modulated.
A fascinating view of #ThetaSweeps as an attention-like mechanism for querying #CognitiveMaps in real time.
#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #GridCells #PlaceCells #Navigation
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Finally out, and this sounds like a beautiful one from the Moser lab: New #Science paper (unfortunately behind a paywall💰) on #ThetaSweeps in the #entorhinal-#hippocampal #navigation circuit. In #rats 🧭🐀, these #theta-locked sweeps are not fixed scanning patterns, but can be rapidly redirected toward #behaviorally relevant locations. …
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The hippocampus, a hybrid creature with horse and fish traits, symbolizes maritime divinity and speed. Often linked with Poseidon, it appears in art across cultures. #hippocampus #greekmythology https://connectparanormal.net/2026/08/04/the-mythical-hippocampus-horse-fish-of-ancient-lore/
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@adredish thanks for the input and for reading our paper!!
I definitely agree that it's better to size the figs so they fit together with their legend, on a single page, and to have the methods in the main text. In this case we did the minimal effort option and uploaded in the same format as for the journal we submitted to... and it's bad.
Still, journals have a lot more resources than individual researchers and it should be very easy and fast for them to format a manuscript properly before sending it for peer-reviews!
As for your scientific comments, thank you so much for all these! I'll answer some of them once I found some time to re-read Jackson et al. and Gupta et al., but for the rest:
place cells over days: we did not try to track individual neurons across days, so we can't say anything about that. One thing though is that between the 3 daily tracks, some of the neurons would sometimes activate in the same local position (e.g. end of a track) even though the tracks were not physically in the same place. I'd say these are the mostly BVC-driven place cells that help generalise a map 'matrix' between environments!
did the rats treat the tracks as novel? I did not run the experiment myself, but I would say, not completely, since the rats were pre-trained (in other geometries) in that room and with the same task, and from their behaviour you can see that they are doing the task quite efficiently, while if it was a completely novel experience, they would act a lot more hesitantly.
place fields stabilisation: you can see it in figure 4B (pasted below), place cells take a few laps to stabilize a lot, although their stability keeps increasing throughout. I think it mostly matches Wilson & Mc Naughton 1993 (this one, right?).
One other related and cool (I think!) finding is that local replay appears to significantly contribute to that stabilisation, in the sense that neurons that are not recruited in a local replay event on a given trial do not increase their stability as much as those who do - see 4I&J (we have a slightly better version of this figure that we'll update the preprint with soon).
More complex task: my prediction is that we'll get similar results in a more complex task, particularly since our 2019 paper did not find any effect of value changes on 'goal-related activity' (which may have been replay) when the behaviour was also properly controlled. But I'll tell you more in my next paper :)
effects of increased experience: well, the rats did experience each task for many days - only the tracks were new, but the task was the same. But you probably meant tracks. I'd say that we would probably observe the same effect (of influence of degree of quiescence, but not reward) for tracks experienced more than once; we can kind of see it in the plots of (Ambrose et al., 2016](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(16)30463-9) who did not have novel tracks; the replay rates across conditions just seem to depend on duration spent at the site more than actual reward value. But it would be great to do the same analysis that we did, on their dataset, to be sure!
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions for now and thanks again for reading and engaging!
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Sleep Apnea's Hidden Path to Memory Loss Runs Through Dopamine
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A new review paper on __The vicarious nature of hippocampal theta sequences__ in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Reviewing the data and evidence that they really are about vicarious futures.
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RE: https://neuromatch.social/@elduvelle_neuro/116850195155224254
Hi all, please check our latest preprint (Tirole et al., 2026) that breaks the dogma of #HippocampalReplay being value-dependent!!
(but of course if there's anything we did not account for, please let us know, that's what preprints are for!!)
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~ New preprint, new thread! ~
My former colleagues at UCL Margot Tirole and Dan Bendor (not on Masto) have a new #HippocampalReplay preprint out, to which I contributed a little! Check out our thread and don't hesitate to share and comment!Why do we remember some experiences more than others?
Reactivations of neurons in the #Hippocampus (“replay”), particularly during sleep, may help consolidate memories; but when many experiences occur before going to bed, the brain must sort out what is worth replaying 😴
We investigated whether reward or recency helped prioritize experiences for replay in freely-moving rats. Surprisingly, we found that reward value does not influence replay! Instead, episode recency has a major effect, with the most recent episode being replayed the most!
Check the preprint for more: Time, but not reward, shapes replay-based episodic prioritization
... or read on for a thread on the main results! ⏬#NeuroRat #SpatialMemory #MemoryConsolidation #Neuroscience #MastoThread
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🧠 How does the #hippocampus keep a spatial map stable while adding aversive context?
Miguel-López et al. show that in mice running on a linear belt, #CA3 #axonal population activity preserved a common spatial #manifold across baseline, air puff and probe sessions. The aversive cue did not erase the map, but deformed it, embedding affective information into the same #representational geometry:
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🐭Did we meet? Just like humans, sleepy mice forget their social encounters after a bad night.
Neuroscientist Robbert Havekes & UG team found that the asthma drug roflumilast brings back these social memories after sleep deprivation.😴
Curious? Read more 👇
🔗https://www.rug.nl/fse/news/highlighted-papers/2026/slaperige-muis-vergeet-ontmoetingen-een-astmamedicijn-brengt-herinneringen-terug🧪 #SciComm #ScienceNewsroom #neuroscience #biology #neurobiology #nature #memory #hippocampus #research #science #engineering #scientistsOnMastodon
@universityofgroningen -
🗺️🐀 How does the #brain map uneven terrain? New paper by @rmgrieves, @elduvelle_neuro & Taube suggests that the #hippocampal map is shaped by terrain #geometry itself, not only by where the animal runs. Slopes, ridges & surface contours may act as spatial structure for #PlaceCells. Read more about in the 🧵👇
📄 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adz9893
"Hippocampal #PlaceCells map terrain geometry independently of #behavior"#Hippocampus #SpatialNavigation #Neuroscience https://fediscience.org/@rmgrieves/116692850991318267
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RE: https://fediscience.org/@rmgrieves/116692850991318267
“This is a hill I’ll die on!” - says the scientist feeding smelly paste to rats running in a home-made maze with hills and troughs just like the waves in the rat’s brain and the emotions in the scientist’s life… 🏔️ 🌊 🧠
@rmgrieves 's latest paper is out, with rats on hills, #PlaceCells recordings and modelling looking at how the brain maps real-life environments: Hippocampal place cells map terrain geometry independently of behavior
It was great fun to work with him and Jeff Taube on this, even with all the emotional rollercoasters (inherent to science-making)!
#Neuroscience #Hippocampus #3DMapping #NeuroRat #SpatialCognition
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#EmotionalIntelligence #MemoryScience #FutureMindset #BrainHealth #Hippocampus #PsychologyExplained #ConsciousMind #wellnesscoaching #wellnessfitness #wellnesscenter #wellnesscommunity #wellnesslife #EmotionsMatter #PersonalGrowth #MentalWellness #NeuroReels https://mastodon.social/@biohackingpathway/116648373479758838
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Sea Animals Figurine Playset (Toymany)Before I start my review I would again like to thank our friends at Toymany for providing this review sample for the Blog. I have really enjoyed being a Toymany collaborator for the past two years!
Marine animals include some of the most popular animals in our hobby, from sharks, to whales and dolphins, to sea turtles. It’s no wonder that many of the more well-known companies have lines and […]
Buy on Ebay Buy on Amazon Buy on HHT Read more... https://animaltoyforum.com/blog/sea-animals-figurine-playset-toymany/ #Aetobatus #AetobatusNarinari #Amphiprion #AmphiprionOcellaris #Arctocephalus #belugaWhale #birdbeakBurrfish #blotchedFantailRay #bowmouthGuitarfish #Coenobita #CoenobutaPerlatus #commonBottlenoseDolphin #commonSeahorse #CownoseRay #Cyclichthys #CyclichthysOrbicularis #Delphinapterus #DelphinapterusLeucas #giantOceanicMantaRay #greenMoray #Gymnothorax #GymnothoraxFunebris #Hippocampus #HippocampusKuda #IndoPacificSailfish #Istiophorus #IstiophorusPlatypterus #killerWhale #Mobula #MobulaBirostris #ocellarisClownfish #Orcinus #OrcinusOrca #Pristis #PristisPectinata #Rhina #RhinaAncylostoma #Rhinoptera #RhinopteraBonasus #sharkRay #smalltoothSawfish #spottedEagleRay #strawberryHermitCrab #Taeniurops #TaeniuropsMeyeni #Tursiops #TursiopsTruncatus -
"We now leave #navigation to our #phones. The result: more of us are getting hopelessly lost." #JohnHarris
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/27/smartphone-apps-gps-mountain-rescues-rise
"#GPS has cut us off from a basic human skill. It’s no wonder #mountain #rescuers are being called out so often. [...] Between 2019 and 2024, the total number of #rescues had increased by 24%, and there was a marked jump among the 18 to 24 age group, among whom callouts almost doubled. [...] across #Britain, there is evidently a mounting problem about the gap between people’s urge to experience wild and open spaces, and their ability to cope when they actually get there. [...] research suggesting that “people with greater lifetime GPS experience have worse #spatialmemory during self-guided navigation”. [...] retested 3 years after the initial research, when they found that “greater GPS use since initial testing was associated with a steeper decline in hippocampal-dependent spatial memory”. The #hippocampus is the part of the brain that deals with navigation: among London taxi drivers, the need to memorise so many geographical details was found to cause it to increase in size. But here were findings that suggested the opposite: reliance on automated #directions reducing people’s capacity to navigate for themselves." #cartography
Thx #SophieBerrebi -
Plethora of protein-making machines in neurons may underlie fragile X
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/plethora-of-protein-making-machines-in-neurons-may-underlie-fragile-x/
#synapticplasticity #fragileXsyndrome #geneexpression #hippocampus #mousemodels #SFARIGene #autism #mGluR5 #News #FMR1 #FMRP -
Fragile X theory falters on amygdala test
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/fragile-x-theory-falters-on-amygdala-test/
#synapticplasticity #fragileXsyndrome #hippocampus #amygdala #mGluR5 #News #rats