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News

UH receives funds for memory research

Biological Clocks Program to use grants to study formation of memories during sleep cycles

Cougar News Services

Arnold Eskin, a biology and biochemistry professor at UH, has been awarded two grants from the National Institutes of Health to continue his study of the impact of the biological clock on learning and memory.

Eskin, the John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Biology and Biochemistry, got a total of $2.47 million to look at how circadian rhythms -- which influence sleep cycles, metabolic rate and body temperature -- may affect the formation of memories at night.

"There is a lot of research going on in memory," Eskin said in a release. "How do we remember things given that we don't have a camera in our brain to record events? What changes take place in our brains that allow us to remember? These grants are about fundamental learning and memory and about modulation of memory."

One of the grants deals with circadian modulation of long-term memory formation. With it, Eskin will continue studying how the biological clock regulates several forms of long-term memory on Aplysia, a marine snail.

His earlier work showed that Aplysia form long-term memories when trained during the day, but not at night; short-term memories, on the other hand, were formed at any time of the day.

The second grant, for the study of long-term regulation of glutamate uptake in Aplysia, will fund work focused on glutamate, which is involved in the formation of memory.

Eskin is studying glutamate uptake and transport to help understand the mechanism that takes place at the synapses of nerve cells, which enables people to remember. Glutamate deficiencies may hinder the processes going on at the synapses, which could in turn cause memory lapses. 

Studying the actions in nerve cells could one day lead to insights into neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.

"At the end of the day, we can't make memory better or improve it unless we understand how memory works and is modulated," Eskin said. "That's what this research is all about."

The Biological Clocks Program at UH is one of the world's leading centers for research into circadian rhythms. 

Eskin leads a team of four tenured faculty members who supervise five laboratories and more than 30 scholars.

For more information on the program, visit www.bchs.uh.edu/research_clocks.htm
 

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