Linking insulin to learning
Recent work by Harvard researchers demonstrates how the signaling pathway of insulin and insulinlike peptides plays a critical role in helping to regulate learning and memory. The research, led by Yun Zhang, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, is described in a Feb. 6 paper in Neuron. “People think of insulin and diabetes, but many metabolic syndromes are associated with some types of cognitive defects and behavioral disorders, like depression or dementia,” Zhang said. “That suggests that insulin and insulinlike peptides may play an important role in neural function, but it’s been very difficult to nail down the underlying mechanism, because these peptides do not have to function through synapses that connect different neurons in the brain.” To get at that mechanism, Zhang and colleagues turned to an organism whose genome and nervous system are well described and highly accessible by genetics: C. elegans. Using genetic tools, researchers altered the transparent worms...