Working memory and neurogenesis at the Bay Area Neuroscience Gathering

The annual Bay Area Neuroscience Gathering (BANG) is a conference where local grad students and neuroscientists showcase their research posters to the Bay Area neuroscience community. Universities represented included UCSF, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State and Stanford. Lumosity presented an investigation into web-based experimentation and cognitive training, which can be found here http://www.lumosity.com/pdf/visual_attention.pdf

Several other research posters relating to brain health were also showcased:

Wesley Clapp, PhD at UCSF, found that subjects consolidate information differently in their working memories when they know they will face distractors than without any distractors present. They looked at two electroencephalography (EEG) signals that are associated particularly with memory, attention, and perception: the P100 and the N170 (these are electrical signals from the brain that occur at 100 and 170 milliseconds after the event has happened). Clapp and colleagues found that these latencies are modulated differently depending on whether the information presented to the subject is relevant or not. He also showed that the amount subjects pay attention to irrelevant information directly correlates with their impairment in working memory performance.

Leslie Meltzer, a Ph.D student working with Karl Deisseroth at Stanford, is studying the effects of antidepressants in rodent models of depression. Meltzer and colleagues found that the therapeutic effects of antidepressants required the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region important for memory formation. This suggests that antidepressants might improve mood by increasing the production of new neurons. During Alzheimer’s disease, neurons in the hippocampus begin to die. Could antidepressants be helpful for fighting off dementia? It’s possible, but there are too many unknowns to have a clear picture.