{"id":163055,"date":"2023-04-29T21:42:25","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T02:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/is-memory-a-virus-how-retroviruses-shaped-the-human-mind"},"modified":"2023-04-29T21:42:25","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T02:42:25","slug":"is-memory-a-virus-how-retroviruses-shaped-the-human-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/is-memory-a-virus-how-retroviruses-shaped-the-human-mind","title":{"rendered":"Is Memory a Virus? How Retroviruses Shaped the Human Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/is-memory-a-virus-how-retroviruses-shaped-the-human-mind.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>All land animals have an <em>Arc<\/em> gene in their brain. This gene serves as the \u201cmaster regulator\u201d that determines how neuronal synapses (i.e., neuronal connections) form in the brain.<\/p>\n<p>Two independent research groups [<a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/29328916-the-neuronal-gene-arc-encodes-a-repurposed-retrotransposon-gag-protein-that-mediates-intercellular-rna-transfer\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/29328915-retrovirus-like-gag-protein-arc1-binds-rna-and-traffics-across-synaptic-boutons\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2<\/a>] have published their findings in the prestigious academic journal, <em>Cell<\/em>, in 2018 \u2014 showing that <em>Arc<\/em> behaves like viruses and has ancestral roots in retroviruses.<\/p>\n<p>In a sense, the <em>Arc<\/em> gene moulds and sculpts the brain connections \u2014 forming the mind \u2014 making amphibians think like amphibians, birds like birds, reptiles like reptiles, monkeys like monkeys, and humans like humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All land animals have an Arc gene in their brain. This gene serves as the \u201cmaster regulator\u201d that determines how neuronal synapses (i.e., neuronal connections) form in the brain. Two independent research groups [1, 2] have published their findings in the prestigious academic journal, Cell, in 2018 \u2014 showing that Arc behaves like viruses and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}