Neuroscientists watched the brains of mice as they played virtual reality games to elucidate how memory goes from its initial formation in the hippocampus to longer-term storage in the cortex. Reporting in the journal Cell on March 30, they found that the anterior thalamus—a brain region not classically involved in models of memory consolidation—is one essential stopover site where memories are processed and stabilized. By stimulating the anterior thalamus of mice while they were learning a virtual reality maze, the team was able to help mice retain memories that they would usually forget after a few weeks.
