MIT’s Aging Brain Initiative Makes Exciting Alzheimer's Finding
A self-employed venture investor working in Boston, Massachusetts, Brussels, and Belgium, Jean-Jacques Degroof also serves as a professor of entrepreneurship at multiple European business schools. Holding a Ph.D. in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Jean-Jacques Degroof actively supports MIT’s Aging Brain Initiative (ABI) as an MIT alumnus.
Part of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, ABI studies memory and how specific brain cells work to encode memories. ABI researcher Susumu Tonegawa is credited with discovering how pulses of laser light can stimulate a light-sensitive protein in certain brain cells. In studies on mice with Alzheimer’s disease, Mr. Tonegawa successfully used laser light to trigger the recovery of short-term memories in mice, such as recognition of a certain place they had forgotten.
Mr. Tonegawa’s findings suggest that patients with Alzheimer’s disease may have trouble accessing stored memories, rather than having permanently lost those memories. The research concluded that patients with Alzheimer’s still have the ability to store memories and that strengthening synaptic connections in the brain can lead to the retention of longer-term memories.
Part of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, ABI studies memory and how specific brain cells work to encode memories. ABI researcher Susumu Tonegawa is credited with discovering how pulses of laser light can stimulate a light-sensitive protein in certain brain cells. In studies on mice with Alzheimer’s disease, Mr. Tonegawa successfully used laser light to trigger the recovery of short-term memories in mice, such as recognition of a certain place they had forgotten.
Mr. Tonegawa’s findings suggest that patients with Alzheimer’s disease may have trouble accessing stored memories, rather than having permanently lost those memories. The research concluded that patients with Alzheimer’s still have the ability to store memories and that strengthening synaptic connections in the brain can lead to the retention of longer-term memories.
