Memory of the digestive system helps us remember where we used to eat

Each minute passed, the brain formed many new memories. And actually, the bowels also help a lot for that process.

Nervous nervous system is known for its ability to warn the brain that we know when the intestine contains too much food. But, according to a new study published June 5 in Nature Communications, the plant nervous system also plays an important role in forming memories, memories of places and objects. Our living environment.

Research author Scott Kanoski, associate professor of biology at the University of Southern California, said the study was done in mice, but it could also happen in humans.

The brain and digestive system communicate with each other mainly through nerve X, the longest nerve in the body. In the study, the authors wanted to test the mouse's reaction when they cut the nerve, disrupting the transfer of information from the intestinal system to the brain.

Usually the nervous system works when animals are eating. So the researchers hypothesize that this function can serve in remembering the location of good food in the environment. It is possible that the animal remembers the location and returns to search for food.

Kanoski and his team set up a number of challenges for mice to find and remember the location of objects in the space around them. They proceeded to project a bright light into the rats' cages enough to make them unbearable and to find a way out. The mice with the intact X nerves that went through the exit all remember the location and exit. But the ones that had been cut off the X wires despite having passed through the previous exit but they were unable to remember the location and could not escape.

When the researchers tracked the brains of mice that were cut off from the vagus nerve, they found a decrease in hippocampal activity, a region of the brain involved in high-level memory. In particular, the number of hippocampal proteins responsible for creating new neurons and connections between nerve cells has been significantly reduced. From this we can deduce that this protein plays a specific role in forming memories.

However, according to Mr. Kanoski, this is true only for memories related to the positioning of objects in space. Cutting the nerve X has almost no effect on the general memory of the brain. That is, our brain remembers what it is, and the nervous system helps us remember the location of the object.

Mr. Kanoski also shared that if the human nervous system has such a role, it will be applied in many diagnostic and therapeutic facilities. For example, there are many targeted treatments for this vagus nerve, such as treating vBloc weight loss. If this nerve actually plays a role in the formation of memories, these treatments obviously affect a lot of human memory.

In contrast, the improvement of the neurotransmitter pathway of the plant nervous system may enhance memory function. Although this, according to Kanoski, still needs to be proved through many other studies.

'If we prove this hypothesis, humans will have more methods to deal with the dreaded Alzheimer's disease , ' he said.