2024-01-22 23:10:00
Sometimes hearing a few notes of a song is enough to take us back in time, to a moment long forgotten. Our brains are indeed able to reconstruct entire memories from small fragments. How does it work?
The human brain is made up of billions of neurones who work collectively. Neurons are like the building blocks of thought, and each can serve multiple purposes. For example, different memories are encoded by different patterns of activity within the same neurons. The process is similar to how your smartphone screen can display different images using the same pixels, or how the same LEGO blocks can be used to build different objects.
Neural research
How neurons accomplish this has been a rapidly developing area of research in recent decades, and sophisticated models of neural networks are now common in digital computers.
Surprisingly, this type of computation is not unique to neurons: the same computational principles can occur in other biological and even purely physical processes.
A new study
A new study led by researchers at Caltech,University of Chicago and theMaynooth University in Ireland demonstrated how neural network-like capabilities are intrinsic to the natural dynamics of molecules as they self-assemble into structures. The phenomenon is analogous to the way neurons work together to recall and reassemble memories, and can therefore be considered a form of “associative recall».
The self-assembly process
To understand what’s happening in this test tube full of molecules, imagine a large swimming pool containing hundreds of LEGO pieces. LEGO pieces can be assembled in different ways, allowing you to create a car, a castle or a caterpillar, all from the same building blocks.
The idea of how self-assembly achieves associative recall is this: if you give the pool mixture a ‘seed’ of a design – say, a few parts already assembled to create a wheel and a windshield – might the rest of the components assemble themselves to produce the desired end product (in this case, a car)? This is an example of a successful associative recall process.
The results of the study
In this study, the team designed 917 different molecules, or “molecular tiles“, which are capable of combining to form three different two-dimensional shapes: the letters H, A, or M. The team put three trillion of these molecules, with relatively equal amounts of each of the 917 variations, into a tube test and observed that the pieces did indeed self-assemble to form numerous small Hs, A’s and M’s. Although some of the letters formed only partially, there were no accidental hybrids of two or three letters. This was an important first finding of the study.
The future of research
The project builds on several decades of work in Winfree’s laboratory. “ What is exciting regarding DNA nanotechnology is that it is truly the only molecular design technology today that allows sophisticated theories of molecular computation to be investigated in the large N limit – here almost a thousand different types of molecules all working together », Specifies Constantine Evans, lead author of the study.
Synthetic
Research into how neurons encode memories has led to a fascinating discovery: molecules can also self-assemble into structures in a manner similar to a neural network. This study demonstrated that molecules can self-assemble to form specific structures, a process that can be considered a form of “associative recall».
For a better understanding
What is associative recall?
Associative recall is a process by which memories are recalled. In the context of this study, it refers to how molecules can self-assemble to form specific structures, a process similar to how neurons work together to recall and reassemble memories.
What is a neural network?
A neural network is a collection of interconnected neurons that work together to process information. In the human brain, neural networks are responsible for many functions, including the encoding of memories.
What is self-assembly?
Self-assembly is a process by which molecules combine to form complex structures without external intervention. In this study, researchers observed that molecules can self-assemble to form specific structures, a process similar to how neurons work together to recall and reassemble memories.
What are the implications of this study?
This study might have significant implications for understanding how memories are encoded and recalled. It might also pave the way for new advances in the field of nanotechnology.
What is the next step in this research?
The researchers plan to continue their work by exploring other types of biomolecular processes, such as multicomponent condensates and genetic regulatory networks.
References
Illustration caption: Molecular tiles in a solution self-assemble into three shapes – H, A or M – depending on the concentrations of common tiles forming a “seed” or nucleation point of a certain shape. Credit: Olivier Wyart
“Pattern recognition in the nucleation kinetics of non-equilibrium self-assembly.” In addition to Evans, Murugan and Winfree, Jackson O’Brien of the University of Chicago is a co-author. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation, the Evans Foundation for Molecular Medicine, the European Research Council, Science Foundation Ireland and the Carver Mead New Adventures Fund.
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