Professor Eric Kandel explains how a protein called CPB may have a built-in memory mechanism that can help long-term memory storage.

There is quite good evidence that there is a regulator of local protein synthesis called the cytoplasmic polyadenylation element binding agent protein CPB. And we have obtained evidence that this has extremely interesting properties. It can be self-maintaining, it can have a memory mechanism built into itself. It acts like a prion protein, prions are self-maintained protein machines, they can perpetuate themselves but unlike conventional prions (which cause disease, like mad cow disease or Jakob Creutzfeldt disease), this is a prion mechanism that we think is only used in a beneficial way to store long-term memory. But, this is not yet definitively shown - this is in the process of being explored.

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