Japan · Ars Technica
Putting mice into hibernation causes a major loss of synapses
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Their leading hypothesis for how their memories are stored is that when you learn something, the connections among neurons involved get stronger and physically larger, and that constitutes the memory.
Key facts
- Bears in a hibernation state reduce their metabolic demand but don’t change their body temperature, which remains around 36° or 37° Celsius
- In June 2020, a team of researchers led by Takeshi Sakurai, a neuroscientist at the University of Tsukuba and a collaborator on Tanaka’s study, developed a technique to artificially activate
- If you compare the arrangement of these connections on day one with the same on day four or five, it’s very, different,” says Kazumasa Tanaka, a neuroscientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science
- For their synapses, these 48 hours worked like Thanos’ snap
Summary
“If you compare the arrangement of these connections on day one with the same on day four or five, it’s very, different,” says Kazumasa Tanaka, a neuroscientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University in Japan. Hibernation is a specialty of squirrels, hamsters, and bears, but the neural circuit that triggers it is conserved across mammals, and is present in species that never hibernate in the wild—like mice. The result is a state dubbed QIH, for Q-neuron-induced hypothermia and hypometabolism. “With our protocol, we can bring mice’s body temperature down to somewhere around 20° Celsius, and their heart rate and breathing rate decrease significantly as well,” Tanaka explains.