COPD drug roflumilast could help restore lost memories

Scientists are on the verge of helping humans regain this lost train of thought.

A new study, published in the journal Current Biology suggests that forgotten memories could be retrieved days later by activating certain brain cells using a biological technique called optogeneticsor by taking roflumilasta commonly used medication usually prescribed to people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.

Using mice, researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands set out to determine whether sleep deprivation led to total memory loss or just the temporary loss of information in the brain that could be retrieved.

The study involved rodents who were deprived of sleep for six hours and tinkered with objects in their cage.

A few days later, the mice couldn’t detect that any of the objects in the cage were in a different position or moving, proving that lack of sleep impacts memory.

Then, in an effort to restore the rodents’ memory, the researchers tried optogenetics – the use of light to control the activity of neurons or other types of cells. The light activated certain neurons in the hippocampus region of the brain, which stores spatial information and fuses memories.

“The information was, in fact, stored in the brain, but difficult to retrieve,” explained neuroscientist Robbert Havekes in the study. as reported by ScienceAlert.com.

“This shows that information was stored in the hippocampus during sleep deprivation, but could not be retrieved without stimulation,” Havekes said in the study.

Additionally, in a distinct and less invasive approach to reactivating lost memories, researchers used roflumilastbelieved to increase levels of a cell signaling molecule that is hampered when memory is impaired as a result of sleep loss.

“When we administered roflumilast to trained mice while they were sleep deprived just before the second test, they remembered, just as it did with direct stimulation of neurons,” Havekes said.

The researchers found that when they combined drug and light activation, memory restoration in mice was evident five days after implementing both.

Although the results are limited to animals for now, the goal, the researchers explained, is to use the study as a stepping stone to understanding how information is retrieved, stored and recalled in humans – and, potentially, one day find a way to help people with memory loss.

“Overall, our studies in mice demonstrate that sleep deprivation does not necessarily cause memory loss, but rather leads to suboptimal storage of information that cannot be retrieved without drug treatment or optogenetic stimulation. “, indicates the study.