Neuroscience of memory: book suggestions

[abaaroft]

I want to delve into the topic of the way the mind works in terms of storing and retrieving memory, and all sources that I can find through Google (wikipedia etc) seem to cover this from a psychological perspective without going into any detail as to how the individual neurons/synapses network in order to store memories.

I cannot find anywhere where short-term/long-term memory is actually explained from a biochemical perspective from the ground up, from the very beginning without assuming anything from any models. Could anyone recommend a good source for this?

Thanks.

 

[Pythagorean]

Memory isn't well understood at a reducitonist level. We know that a lot of reductionist mechanisms are related to memory (and further, that there are many kinds of memory). Some such mechanisms are:

Long term potentiation (LTP) [1] can increase excitability of a cell and lead to Hebbian learning [2]. With increased activity, microtubule invasion into dendrites [3] leads to increased surface contact between dendritic spine and axon bouton, which leads to more conducting channels of a synapse, increasing the strength of signaling between the neurons. Also interesting in this regard is silent synapses [4].

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10878/
[2] http://penta.ufrgs.br/edu/telelab/3/hebbian_.htm
[3] http://www.jneurosci.org/content/28/49/13094.full\
[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2819160/

Less understood and more controversial are how other molecular mechanisms and cells play into memory. For instance, one paper proposes prion-like proteins play an important role [5]. There's also a lot of researchers looking at the roles of astrocytes [6] which can form a tripartite synapse with two coupled neurons [7].

[5] http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(12)00005-0
[6] http://white.stanford.edu/teach/index.php/Role_of_Astrocytes_in_Learning_and_Memory
[7] http://blogforalzheimers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Image-12-31-11.jpg

 

[abaaroft]

Very helpful and interesting, I'll look into those studies, thanks.

 

[DiracPool]

I want to delve into the topic of the way the mind works in terms of storing and retrieving memory, and all sources that I can find through Google (wikipedia etc) seem to cover this from a psychological perspective without going into any detail as to how the individual neurons/synapses network in order to store memories.

I cannot find anywhere where short-term/long-term memory is actually explained from a biochemical perspective from the ground up, from the very beginning without assuming anything from any models. Could anyone recommend a good source for this?

Thanks.

What's your level of understanding of neurobiology? As far as popular treatments on the subject, there's a few books I can recommend:


Damasio's book...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0156010755/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Freeman's book..
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231120087/?tag=pfamazon01-20

And especially, one of my favs, McCrones book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0880642629/?tag=pfamazon01-20