Memories are made in the heat of innate immune response to neuronal DNA damage from electromechanical forces inside the brain.

This is a (literally) mindblowing study with far-reaching implications and entirely new research avenues screaming to be opened up.

Does this operate in human brains? Likely yes, as basic physics is the same, and TLR genes are highly conserved all the way to fruit flies.

Does it seem consistent with late Roger Tsien's hypothesis of long-term memory as a pattern of holes in perineuronal net, poked by inflammation-associated MMP enzymes?

How can we study this in humans? fMRI, the workhorse of neuroimaging, does not have enough resolution to look at these processes that take place on mesoscale (0.1 to 10 um). Are any existing modalities at all suitable for non-invasive imaging in live, awake humans? maybe photoacoustic imaging, but of what?

When does it operate? With any sensory inputs or only some that are, by some metric, memorable?

Is there a "good" and "bad" learning-associated inflammation"? Do learning styles and, more broadly, patterns of information consumption matter for health? Does mental diet and mental exercise make a difference? On what timescales do they manifest?

Finally, if you've ever said anything like "my brain is hurting / swollen / exploding from all this information" you are officially not wrong.

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/alekis_memories-are-made-by-breaking-dna-and-fixing-activity-7184165797102018560-yAGB