How the brain’s ‘bad boys’ make us who we are

Tau proteins are seen as the ‘bad boys’ in our brains, responsible for Alzheimer’s disease.

But if they weren’t there, we wouldn’t be ‘us’.  They are responsible for long-term memory, helping us to thread together experiences into lasting memories.

Tau helps organize and stabilize memories so they can be retained over time, say researchers from Flinders University.  In studies with mice, they discovered that tau is not necessary for learning something new or remembering it shortly afterward, but it is crucial in making those memories durable over the long term.

The team focused on specialized brain cells called “engram cells,” which create the physical record of a memory. When a new experience occurs, only a small number of these cells are selected to store it, and tau protein is active during this critical stage of memory formation, helping determine exactly which engram cells are recruited to preserve the experience.

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