In essence, these flies had twice the memory of their normal counterparts. When RISC was knocked out, so was long-term memory, and flies would remember to alter their behavior in the presence of the shock-linked odor for perhaps an hour; that is, they only had short-term memory. When the pathway was normally active, the flies remained averse to the odor for a day or more. |
It has been known for some time that learning and long-term memory require synthesis of new proteins, but exactly how protein synthesis activity relates to memory creation and storage has not been clear. |