Elucidating memory in the brain via single-cell transcriptomics

Elucidating the neural mechanisms of memory in the brain is a central goal of neuroscience. Here, we discuss modern-day transcriptomics methodologies, and how they are well-poised to revolutionize our insight into memory mechanisms at unprecedented resolution and throughput. Focusing on the hippocampus and amygdala, two regions extensively examined in memory research, we show how single-cell transcriptomics technologies have been leveraged to understand the naïve state of these brain regions. Building upon this foundation, we show that these technologies can be applied to single-trial learning paradigms to comprehensively identify molecules and cells that participate in the encoding and retrieval of memory. Transcriptomics also provides an opportunity to understand the cell-type organization of the human hippocampus and amygdala, and due to conservation of these brain regions between humans and rodents, to infer behavioral and causal contributions in the human brain by leveraging rodent cell-type homologies and interventions. Ultimately, such transcriptomic technologies are poised to usher in a qualitatively novel understanding of memory in the brain.