A Molecule for Memory?

Though people complain about their faulty memories as often as about the weather, memory is just about the most durable phenomenon in human nature. Once imprinted in the brain, specific memories withstand the most devastating attacks, such as electric shock and mind-deadening drugs. This is so great a mystery that there was a packed house in Berkeley last week as a dozen different breeds of scientists convened at the University of California for a two-day symposium on "Behavior, Brain and Biochemistry."

The big questions were whether learning, which is one manifestation of memory, can be speeded up with the aid of chemicals and whether memory can be improved. The most affirmative evidence came from Illinois' Abbott Laboratories, where Biochemists Alvin J. Glasky, 32, and Lionel Simon, 31, worked in their spare time on a theory of memory developed by Sweden's Neurobiologist Holger Hyden (TIME, Feb. 10, 1961). According to this theory, memory depends on a process in which molecules of ribonucleic acid (RNA), or possibly subordinate protein molecules, are coded to record a particular event and then become lodged in certain nerve cells.

Rats & Goldfish. The Abbott researchers reasoned that learning and memory might be improved by boosting the supply of RNA, and hit upon a seemingly harmless chemical, magnesium pemoline (tradenamed Cylert), which increases RNA synthesis twofold or threefold. Working with Dr. Nicholas P. Plotnikoff, the researchers put Cylert in rat feed, then placed the animals in a chamber where they had to learn to avoid an electric shock. Rats on Cylert learned after only two or three trials; rats with no Cylert took eight to ten trials. Moreover, the Cylert rats remembered their lesson as long as six months, while untreated rats forgot it within a few days.

Related evidence discussed last week suggests that RNA extracted from the brains of trained animals can be used to accelerate learning when injected into untrained animals. Converse evidence that chemicals are involved in forgetting came from the University of Michigan's Dr. Bernard W. Agranoff, who reported that trained goldfish forgot how to avoid a shock, and untrained fish did not learn as well after injections of the antibiotic puromycin.

Human Trial. A major objection to the idea of injecting a "memory molecule" is that injected RNA is broken down biochemically into much smaller molecules before it can reach the brain. But a drug that increases RNA production in the brain itself might get around this objection. Psychiatrist D. Ewen Cameron, who has tried to improve oldsters' failing memories with injections of RNA from yeast (with still-disputed results), is now testing Cylert at the VA hospital in Albany, N.Y. Says Cylert's co-developer, Biochemist Glasky: "We are going to have trials on thousands of people and should know in about six months whether the drug is effective. But then it might take years to determine whether it is safe for general use."

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