Star-shaped brain cells may underpin the brain's massive memory storage

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Star-shaped brain cells may underpin the brain's massive memory storage

A new machine learning model shows that star-shaped brain cells may be responsible for the brain's memory capacity, and someday, it could inspire advances in AI and Alzheimer's research

Astrocytes are star-shaped cells in the brain that may play and unsung role in memory. (Image credit: JUAN GAERTNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)

For decades, scientists believed neurons were the brain's sole architects of thought and memory — but now, new research suggests that another, often-overlooked type of brain cell may play a more central role in memory than previously thought.

The study, published in May in the journal PNAS, proposes that these other brain cells, called astrocytes, could be responsible for the brain's impressive memory-storage capacity through a newly discovered kind of network architecture.

Astrocytes are star-shaped cells that perform many maintenance tasks in the brain, including clearing cellular debris, supplying neurons with nutrients and regulating blood flow. They also sport thin branching structures, known as processes, that wrap around the points where neurons exchange messages. This wrapping forms what is called a tripartite synapse, a kind of three-way handshake involving the two connected neurons and the astrocyte.

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"You can imagine an astrocyte as an octopus with millions of tentacles," said lead author Leo Kozachkov, who was a PhD student at MIT at the time the study was conducted and is now a postdoctoral fellow at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, New York. "The head of the octopus is the cell body, and the tentacles are 'processes' that wrap around nearby synapses," Kozachkov told Live Science in an email.

Astrocytes don't transmit electrical impulses like neurons do. Instead, they communicate via calcium signaling, sending waves of charged calcium particles within and between cells. Studies have shown that astrocytes respond to synaptic activity by altering their internal calcium levels. These changes can then trigger the release of chemical messengers from the astrocyte into the synapse.

"These processes act as tiny calcium computers, sensing when information is sent through the synapse, passing that information to other processes, and then receiving feedback in return," Kozachkov said. Ultimately, this chain email gets back to the neurons, which adjust their activity in turn. However, researchers don't yet fully understand the precise computational functions astrocytes perform with the information they receive from neurons.

Related: The brain stores at least 3 copies of every memory