Synaptic Mechanisms and Protein Synthesis in Memory

Learning and memory are fundamental higher brain functions that allow individuals to adapt to the environment, build up their own history as unique creatures, and widen the personal cultural background, and, ultimately, the population culture. The molecular and cellular mechanisms that contribute to short- and long-term memory are extremely conserved across evolution from mollusks to man and among various forms of memory and consist short- to long-lived rearrangements in synaptic efficiency and in the structure of neuronal networks.