CREB: A cornerstone of memory consolidation?

Abstract

It has long been appreciated that memories can persist for dramatically different lengths of times, from seconds and minutes to a lifetime Not only do these forms of memory differ in their persistence but they also have distinct molecular requirements. Short-term memory (STM) persists on a time scale of minutes to hours and is thought to be mediated by covalent modifications of existing synaptic molecules, such as the phosphorylation or dephosphorylation of enzymes, receptors or ion channels (Stork and Welzl, 1999). In contrast, long-term memory (LTM) persists for days or longer, and is thought to be mediated by the growth of new synapses and the restructuring of existing synapses (Bailey and Chen, 1989). There is extensive evidence from a wide variety of species that, unlike STM, LTM requires the transcription and translation of new proteins (Davis and Squire, 1984; Matthies, 1989). This raises the question of which transcription factors may mediate this process.