{"id":226477,"date":"2025-12-04T01:30:46","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T07:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/molecular-switch-links-early-life-stimulation-to-lasting-memory-changes"},"modified":"2025-12-04T01:30:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T07:30:46","slug":"molecular-switch-links-early-life-stimulation-to-lasting-memory-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/molecular-switch-links-early-life-stimulation-to-lasting-memory-changes","title":{"rendered":"Molecular switch links early-life stimulation to lasting memory changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/molecular-switch-links-early-life-stimulation-to-lasting-memory-changes2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers have identified a molecular mechanism that helps explain why growing up in a stimulating environment enhances memory. In contrast, a lack of stimulation can impair it. The team from the Institute for Neurosciences (IN), a joint research center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez University of Elche (UMH), was led by researcher \u00c1ngel Barco.<\/p>\n<p>Their study, conducted in mice and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-025-65343-5\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Communications<\/i>, demonstrates that the environment during childhood and adolescence has a lasting impact on the brain by activating or repressing a single transcription factor, AP-1, which regulates the expression of genes involved in neuronal plasticity and learning. This finding identifies a molecular mediator that can translate life experiences into persistent changes in <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2023-04-key-protein-production-neurons-memory.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">cognitive function<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have identified a molecular mechanism that helps explain why growing up in a stimulating environment enhances memory. In contrast, a lack of stimulation can impair it. The team from the Institute for Neurosciences (IN), a joint research center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez University of Elche (UMH), was led [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226477","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}