Do you remember your oldest memory? Jason Shepherd clearly recalls a childhood filled with questioning the world around him, which naturally lead to a life of scientific discovery. As a Neurobiologist, Jason’s curiosity spurred an unexpected finding as he studied the biology behind memory storage, encoding, and retrieval. Exploring the gene called ARC, which is essential to the synaptic plasticity that facilitates learning and cognition, Jason discovered that, at a biological level, the process of memory storage strongly resembles that of viral transmission.

Watch Jason’s TEDMED 2018 Talk to learn how a viral-like evolutionary remnant underlies human memory storage. By diving further into this genetic homology, we may be able to prevent memory related ailments, such as Alzheimer’s, before they strike.

Link to Talk: https://www.tedmed.com/talks/show?id=729641

Our recent findings concerning Arc’s role in intercellular RNA transfer and possible viral origin has received attention from Newsweek and Nature.

https://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/viewpoint/2014/signaling-pathways-link-autism-schizophrenia

Traditionally scientists mostly use one sex for their studies. Especially in neuroscience where behavioural differences may prove confounding. While I think this is a good idea, we could certainly be more efficient when using our animal colonies if we did discard females, it will certainly mean that monitoring whether there are sex differences in a study will make it a longer one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/health/nih-tells-researchers-to-end-sex-bias-in-early-studies.html?hp