Question

1. How are the left and right hippocampi different?
2. Why are optogenetics and chemogenetics important for understanding the functioning of the nervous system?
3. How might the findings that the left and right hippocampus are different inform studies of human conditions, such as Alzheimer’s Disease?

Answer 1

The hippocampus plays a critical role in verbal and spatial memory. The left hippocampus plays a critical role in episodic verbal memory, while right hippocampus might be more important for spatial memory processing among older adults. Verbal memory are those related to facts and events, examples include learning how to memorize speeches or lines in a play.Spatial relationship memories involve pathways or routes. For example, when you drive a car through particular route and memorises that route than you use, spatial memory.

.Optogenetics and chemogenetics are popular methods used to study the relationship between brain activity and behavior, both optogenetics and chemogenetics are used to study factors that influence brain activity but the method used is different, Optogenetics uses light-sensitive channels that are introduced into the neurons while chemogenetics use chemically engineered receptors and exogenous molecules specific for those receptors. These methods are used to study treatment option for neurogenerative diseases like dementia, alzheimers, etc.

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder,it occurs due to  progressive loss of tissue throughout the brain, in particular,to the hippocampus area which tends to show the most rapid loss of tissue earliest in the disease course. The progressive shrinkage of the hippocampus is responsible for the short-term memory loss that is the hallmark symptom of Alzheimer’s. If one or both parts of the hippocampus are damaged by illnesses such as Alzheimer’s the person can experience a loss of memory and a loss of the ability to make new, long-term memories.They may be unable to remember some things that happened shortly before the hippocampal damage, but they may still remember things that happened long ago this is because the long-term memories are stored in another part of the brain