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Consciousness and Cell Memory: A Dynamic Epigenetic Interrelationship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2016

Arthur J. Hudson
Arthur J. Hudson*
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
*
Dept. of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Ontario, 8 Doncaster Ave., London, Ontario, N6G 2A2, Canada
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Abstract:

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There have been great advances in the neurological sciences in recent years including some in the higher functions of the brain such as memory but one of the more critical of these with close ties to memory is consciousness which remains an enigma. Revolutionary developments in genetics during the last two decades, referred to as epigenetics, have provided opportunity for discovery. The chromatin in the cell nucleus consists mainly of DNA nucleotides and histone proteins and the DNA is dynamically and epigenetically altered by the local actions of enzymes and trans-acting factors on the adjacent histone amino acids. DNA is also directly activated or inhibited by methyl groups and by non-coding RNAs. Epigenetics is a determinant in long-term cell memory consolidation and, as recently demonstrated in animal and human studies and described here, these effects enable a rapid and extraordinarily complex cognitive matching of cell memory to experience during consciousness.

Type
Review Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences , Volume 38 , Issue 5 , September 2011 , pp. 681 - 688
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Neurological Sciences Federation 2011

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