IUBio

Apology to kkollins

Stephan Anagnostaras stephan at nospam.ucla.edu
Sun Nov 29 20:16:38 EST 1998


In article <73qeta$lj8 at dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>,
flefever at ix.netcom.com(F. Frank LeFever) wrote:

> Even a clock that is no longer running will be exactly right twice a
> day.
> 
>   Apparently kkollins is correct: the program does seem to have
> included a segment on Eric Kandel's work (as well as another segment,
> on the famous patient HM; I mention this because kkollins clipped this
> from the original post, leaving the rest of my comment mysterious to
> those who did not see it).
> 
> I say apparently, because I have not seen a response from anyone
> explicitly saying that he saw the program and can verify this; but the
> surmise (by another respondent) that what was heard as "kreb" was
> actually CREB seems reasonable. 
> 
> For kkollins not to comment on the unlikelihood that Eric Kandel would
> be talking about the Krebs cycle in rodents, however, suggests that his
> knowledge of Kandel's work is nil, and he is just one of thousands
> millions?) who have heard or seen Kandel's name over the past 2-3
> decades.  
> 
> re-shaping memory so that CREB comes out as Krebs cycle is
> understandable, but what about "in rodents"?  Possibly Kandel did speak
> of his more recent mouse work, but maybe Aplysia was translated as "sea
> hare" and the listener/viewer heard "hare", thought hares were still
> classified as rodents, and therefore---!
> 
> Of the 12 posters with Kandel's name somewhere among the authors (at
> Society for Neuroscience a few weeks ago), only one of the Aplysia
> abstracts included a reference to CREB (none of the mouse abstracts
> did); CREB references in recent articles (4 yrs) in Medline were all in
> Aplysia papers, except one mouse paper looking at something "downstream
> from CREB-1".  However, "CREB in rodents" may have been cited in that
> program--did anybody see it? (i.e. any accurate reporters?)
> 
> re my remarks about kkollins' willingness to speak on matters he
> scarcely understands: please apply them to more appropriate occasions
> past and future...
> 
> F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
> New York Neuropsychology Group

Sure, the reason you didn't find it is because the CREB stuff in the mouse
wasn't done by Kandel it was done in Alcino Silva's lab (who I work for).
The CREB mutant mouse (a mouse for which two of the major CREB isoforms
have been knocked out) has a profound phenotype... it learns just about
everything fine and then forgets it an hour or so later... it shows a
similar pattern in synaptic plasticity.  The CREB mechanism is conserved
at least in drosophila, aplysia, and mice (and several others), so it is
likely to work in humans. The problems of trying to make a drug out of it
are profound, I won't go into this; if it does work, it will take many
years to make it work.

Anyway try reading:

Silva et al. CREB and Memory. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1998;21:127-48.

Kogan et al. Spaced training induces normal long-term memory in 
CREB mutant mice.Curr Biol. 1997 Jan 1;7(1):1-11. 

Bourtchuladze et al. Deficient long-term memory in mice with a targeted
mutation of the cAMP-responsive element-binding protein. Cell. 1994 Oct
7;79(1):59-68



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