Scientists Identify Genes Activated During Learning And Memory

Researchers have theorized that certain genes must be activated to alter neuron activity inside the brain for learning and memory to take place. Finding and cataloging all the genes involved in learning is a formidable job. Scientists have now developed a computational approach to provide a rapid way to identify the likely members of this sought-after set of genes.

Title is misleading

[HateBreeder]

They didn't identify the genes... they developed a method that might help in identifying these genes.

Misleading

[mapkinase]

This is not experimental article. [biomedcentral.com]. This is 100% computational study. And again (I said it elsewhere several times already): it would be nice if submitters will make a little bit of extra effort and give a link to the original peer-revied publication.

Worth publishing in a scientific journal? May be. Worth the front page of /.? No.

nice job of publicity

[tgibbs]

Carnegie Mellon's media people seem to have done a very good job of publicizing some fairly routine work. Database searches to identify targets of transcription factors are fairly routine. The authors may have an improved approach, but the paper contains no experimental validation. And while there is plenty of evidence implicating these transcription factors in learning and memory, it does not necessarily follow that every gene regulated by these factors is involved in learning and memory. There are other transcription factors, both positive and negative, and transcription factors can interact in complex combinatorial ways.