@PLOSNeuro #SfN14 Preview: The Living Record of Memory: Genes, Neurons, and Synapses. Presidential Special Lecture at SfN 2014

009. The Living Record of Memory: Genes, Neurons, and Synapses

Saturday, Nov 15, 2014, 5:15 PM— 6:26 PM. WCC Hall D

Speaker: K. C. Martin

As you sit through compelling lectures and traverse the expanse of the poster floor, your brain will be working hard to encode all of the new information. In the first Presidential Lecture of this year’s conference, Dr. Kelsey Martin of UCLA will speak to the molecular mechanisms that turn our experiences into memories. Dr. Martin is a professor and chair of Biological Chemistry at UGA as well as a professor in Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and co-director of the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program. She received her postdoctoral training under Nobel laureate Eric Kandel and, like her mentor, continued working to try and pare down the physiological basis of memory.

In order for synaptic connections to form and evolve from transient connections into persistent networks, genes must be transcribed, translated and translocated to their cellular targets. Our environments alter the communication between the nucleus and synapses in ways that promote synaptic plasticity and prune away the connections we no longer need. I find this exceptionally fascinating considering that biomolecues turnover too rapidly to account for memories that may last a lifetime. I look foward to hearing how Dr. Martin will address these complexities and will be live-tweeting from the lecture. Keep up @ERoseEngland!