Engrams: A Window into the Memory Trace

This is the first book to extensively explore the current state-of-the-art and promise of engram cells, the closest physical approximation of the memory trace to date. Converging evidence suggests that memories are stored, at least in part, as specific populations of engram cells. In this book, the leading experts in engram biology share their continuously refined insights on how engram cells contribute to information encoding and storage, across diverse brain regions and behavioral modalities. “Engrams: A Window into the Memory Trace" is broad in scope and spans molecular, cellular, circuit, computational as well as societal-philosophical aspects of memory engrams. Particular emphasis is placed on their emerging translational value for memory dysfunctions in age and stress-related disorders. 

Johannes Gräff, PhD, is Associate Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Neuroepigenetics at the Brain Mind Institute of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Trained as a biologist at the University of Lausanne, Johannes Gräff obtained his PhD in Neuroscience at ETH Zurich before pursuing his postdoctoral studies at the Picower Institute of Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA. His laboratory studies the molecular underpinnings of memory formation, storage and change, with a particular emphasis on epigenetic mechanisms.

Steve Ramirez is an Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University and a former Junior Fellow of Harvard University. He received his B.A. in neuroscience from Boston University and went on to receive his Ph.D. in neuroscience at MIT. His lab focuses on imaging and manipulating memories throughout the mammalian brain, with a particular emphasis on artificially modulating memories to alleviate symptoms associated with pathologies of the brain.