How to Make—or Break—Memory: Scientific American

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How to Make—or Break—Memory: Scientific American: "New evidence has been mounting to the contrary, however, since 1987 when an enzyme that carries out methylation was found in the neurons of adults. A study in this week's Neuron provides key evidence that DNA methylation—also known to occur as cancerous cells divide, when tumor suppressor genes are silenced—occurs in adult brains and can be triggered by environmental cues. Study co-author David Sweatt, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says the finding could provide new targets for treating mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and the autism-spectrum disorder Rett, conditions in which improper methylation switches off certain genes during development."