Molecular mechanisms of forgetting.

The field of learning and memory has largely focused their efforts on memory formation, deeming the act of forgetting as a necessary and unavoidable error of the brain's storage system. However, recent studies show that forgetting might be a purposeful mechanism with dedicated molecular pathways. This has opened new avenues for the study of memory processes and their manipulation. This review article focuses on the proposed molecular pathways that could underlie forgetting (postsynaptic glutamate receptors and their subunit composition, structural proteins, kinases, phosphatases, and neuromodulators), and reviews the latest contributions to this topic. The discussed molecular pathways are then related to synaptic depotentiation, which is a proposed mechanism underlying forgetting.