How a Pond Snail Could Someday Improve Your Memory
Studying memory mechanisms in simple organisms could help develop drugs for trauma and dementia patients.
If you think of a snail, and then think of a human, there are some obvious differences. But decades of studies say our memories might have more in common than some might guess.
One of the recent advances is the discovery that memory is likely similar across organisms, at least at a molecular level. Eric Kandel, a neuroscientist at Columbia University, has researched memory in sea slugs and mice for years, so much so that in 2000 he won a Nobel Prize for his work. (Related: "To Fight Opioid Addiction, Scientists See Promise in Sea Snail Venom")
"People have built on this work, and it's turned out to be very relevant," says David Glanzman, a neurobiology professor at
