When the activity of a molecule that is normally elevated during viral infections is inhibited in the brain, mice learn and remember better. The authors of the article discovered that mice lacking PKR in the brain have a kind of "super memory". PKR is a double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase molecule. It was originally described as a sensor of viral infections, but its function in the brain was totally unknown. Mice that lacked PKR learned a task in which the mice would use visual cues for finding a hidden platform in a circular pool, after only one training session. As opposed to normal mice had to repeat the task multiple times over many days in order to remember the platform's location. They say that, " This molecule could hold the key to not only how we can keep our memories longer, but also how we can create new ones."
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