[초청강연] Memory Engram

Memory Engram

Bong-Kiun Kaang
School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

Learning is the process by which we obtain the information about the world and memory is
the process by which that information is stored. About 100 years ago, Richard Semon, a
German biologist coined “engram” or memory trace that is defined as the lasting physical
changes in the brain that occur as a result of an experience. Donald Hebb, a Canadian
psychologist, proposed an idea of cell assembly and Hebbian synaptic plasticity, in 1949.
However, we do not know whether memory formation strengthens synapses between engram
cells in different brain regions. So, we asked if memory formation strengthens synapses
between engram cells, structurally and functionally. In this colloquium, I will present our
recent structural and functional approaches to reveal enhanced structural and functional
connectivity between engram cells in the hippocampus during memory formation. Our data
demonstrated that enhanced structural and functional connectivity between engram cells
across two directly connected brain regions forms the synaptic correlate for memory
formation.