00:00For a long time, we've known that something called amyloid plaques are involved in the development of neurodegenerative diseases that
00:06affect the brain, like especially Alzheimer's.
00:08So that's obviously negative. But now, researchers have shown that amyloids can also be positive, and they've learned this through
00:16some pretty amazing research.
00:18Within the brain of the common fruit fly, they tested certain processes that involve folding proteins, in fact, amyloid proteins.
00:30That when they're properly folded, instead of causing memory loss, they cause memories to form, especially long-term memories, which
00:37in a fly is about a day.
00:38But here's how it works. There's a little guide that comes, a sort of protein messenger guide, that folds the
00:47protein into the proper shape.
00:49Now, this accompanying protein is called Funes, after a story by Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine writer, and a
00:57story of his in which a man has a perfect memory, which turns out to be a curse.
01:01But in this case, it's a blessing, because what we thought was really a bad disease vector can be a
01:07very good process to understand how we form long-term memories.
01:11And the researchers hope that this example in a fruit fly can extend our understanding of how to treat memory
01:18loss, and to even treat conditions that are related, like schizophrenia.
01:23.
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